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The IliadHomer

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Context

Nearly three thousand years after they were composed, The Iliad and The Odyssey remain two of themost celebrated and widely read stories ever told, yet next to nothing is known about their composer. He wascertainly an accomplished Greek bard, and he probably lived in the late eighth and early seventh centuriesb.c. Authorship is traditionally ascribed to a blind poet named Homer, and it is under this name that theworks are still published. Greeks of the third and second centuries b.c., however, already questioned whetherHomer existed and whether the two epics were even written by a single individual.

Most modern scholars believe that even if a single person wrote the epics, his work owed a tremendousdebt to a long tradition of unwritten, oral poetry. Stories of a glorious expedition to the East and of its leaders’fateful journeys home had been circulating in Greece for hundreds of years before The Iliad and The Odysseywere composed. Casual storytellers and semiprofessional minstrels passed these stories down through gener-ations, with each artist developing and polishing the story as he told it. According to this theory, one poet,multiple poets working in collaboration, or perhaps even a series of poets handing down their work in succes-sion finally turned these stories into written works, again with each adding his own touch and expanding orcontracting certain episodes in the overall narrative to fit his taste.

Although historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence suggests that the epics were composedbetween 750 and 650 b.c. they are set in Mycenaean Greece in about the twelfth century b.c., during theBronze Age. This earlier period, the Greeks believed, was a more glorious and sublime age, when gods stillfrequented the earth and heroic, godlike mortals with superhuman attributes populated Greece. Because thetwo epics strive to evoke this pristine age, they are written in a high style and generally depict life as it wasbelieved to have been led in the great kingdoms of the Bronze Age. The Greeks are often referred to as“Achaeans,” the name of a large tribe occupying Greece during the Bronze Age.

But Homer’s reconstruction often yields to the realities of eighth- and seventh-century b.c. Greece. Thefeudal social structure apparent in the background of The Odyssey seems more akin to Homer’s Greece than toOdysseus’s, and Homer substitutes the pantheon of deities of his own day for the related but different godswhom Mycenaean Greeks worshipped. Many other minor but obvious anachronisms—such as references toiron tools and to tribes that had not yet migrated to Greece by the Bronze Age—betray the poem’s later, IronAge origins.

For centuries, many scholars believed that the Trojan War and its participants were entirely the creation ofthe Greek imagination. But in the late nineteenth century, an archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemanndeclared that he had discovered the remnants of Troy. The ruins that he uncovered sit a few dozen miles off ofthe Aegean coast in northwestern Turkey, a site that indeed fits the geographical descriptions of Homer’sTroy. One layer of the site, roughly corresponding to the point in history when the fall of Troy would havetaken place, shows evidence of fire and destruction consistent with a sack. Although most scholars acceptSchliemann’s discovered city as the site of the ancient city of Troy, many remain skeptical as to whetherHomer’s Trojan War ever really took place. Evidence from Near Eastern literature suggests that episodessimilar to those described in The Iliad may have circulated even before Schliemann’s Troy was destroyed.Nonetheless, many scholars now admit the possibility that some truth may lie at the center of The Iliad, hid-den beneath many layers of poetic embellishment.

Like The Odyssey, The Iliad was composed primarily in the Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, which was spo-ken on the Aegean islands and in the coastal settlements of Asia Minor, now modern Turkey. Some scholarsthus conclude that the poet hailed from somewhere in the eastern Greek world. More likely, however, thepoet chose the Ionic dialect because he felt it to be more appropriate for the high style and grand scope of hiswork. Slightly later Greek literature suggests that poets varied the dialects of their poems according to thethemes that they were treating and might write in dialects that they didn’t actually speak. Homer’s epics arePanhellenic (encompassing all of Greece) in spirit and use forms from several other dialects. This suggeststhat Homer suited his poems to the dialect that would best complement his ideas.

Copyright 2002, 2007 by SparkNotes

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The Aftermath of the IliadThe Trojan War has not yet ended at the close of The Iliad. Homer’s audience would have been familiar withthe struggle’s conclusion, and the potency of much of Homer’s irony and foreboding depends on this familiar-ity. What follows is a synopsis of some of the most important events that happen after The Iliad ends.

The Death of AchillesIn the final books of The Iliad, Achilles refers frequently to his imminent death, about which his mother, The-tis, has warned him. After the end of the poem, at Hector’s funeral feast, Achilles sights the beautiful Polyx-ena, the daughter of Priam and hence a princess of Troy. Taken with her beauty, Achilles falls in love withher. Hoping to marry her, he agrees to use his influence with the Achaean army to bring about an end to thewar. But when he travels to the temple of Apollo to negotiate the peace, Paris shoots him in the heel—the onlyvulnerable part of his body—with a poisoned arrow. In other versions of the story, the wound occurs in themidst of battle.

Achilles’ Armor and the Death of AjaxAfter Achilles’ death, Ajax and Odysseus go and recover his body. Thetis instructs the Achaeans to bequeathAchilles’ magnificent armor, forged by the god Hephaestus, to the most worthy hero. Both Ajax and Odys-seus covet the armor; when it is awarded to Odysseus, Ajax commits suicide out of humiliation.

The Palladium and the Arrows of HeraclesBy the time of Achilles’ and Ajax’s deaths, Troy’s defenses have been bolstered by the arrival of a new coalitionof allies, including the Ethiopians and the Amazons. Achilles killed Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons,before his death, but the Trojans continue to repel the Achaean assault. The gods relay to the Achaeans thatthey must perform a number of tasks in order to win the war: they must recover the arrows of Heracles, steala statue of Athena called the Palladium from the temple in Troy, and perform various other challenges.Largely owing to the skill and courage of Odysseus and Diomedes, the Achaeans accomplish the tasks, andthe Achaean archer Philoctetes later uses the arrows of Heracles to kill Paris. Despite this setback, Troy con-tinues to hold against the Achaeans.

The Fall of TroyThe Achaean commanders are nearly ready to give up; nothing can penetrate the massive walls of Troy. Butbefore they lose heart, Odysseus concocts a plan that will allow them to bypass the walls of the city completely.The Achaeans build a massive, hollow, wooden horse, large enough to hold a contingent of warriors inside.Odysseus and a group of soldiers hide in the horse, while the rest of the Achaeans burn their camps and sailaway from Troy, waiting in their ships behind a nearby island.

The next morning, the Trojans peer down from the ramparts of their wall and discover the gigantic, mys-terious horse. They also discover a lone Achaean soldier named Sinon, whom they take prisoner. Asinstructed by Odysseus, Sinon tells the Trojans that the Achaeans have incurred the wrath of Athena for thetheft of the Palladium. They have left Sinon as a sacrifice to the goddess and constructed the horse as a gift tosoothe her temper. Sinon explains that the Achaeans left the horse before the Trojan gates in the hopes thatthe Trojans would destroy it and thereby earn the wrath of Athena.

Believing Sinon’s story, the Trojans wheel the massive horse into the city as a tribute to Athena. Thatnight, Odysseus and his men slip out of the horse, kill the Trojan guards, and fling open the gates of Troy tothe Achaean army, which has meanwhile approached the city again. Having at last penetrated the wall, theAchaeans massacre the citizens of Troy, plunder the city’s riches, and burn the buildings to the ground. All ofthe Trojan men are killed except for a small group led by Aeneas, who escapes. Helen, whose loyalties haveshifted back to the Achaeans since Paris’s death, returns to Menelaus, and the Achaeans at last set sail forhome.

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After the WarThe fates of many of The Iliad’s heroes after the war occupy an important space in Greek mythology. Odys-seus, as foretold, spends ten years trying to return to Ithaca, and his adventures form the subject of Homer’sother great epic, The Odyssey. Helen and Menelaus have a long and dangerous voyage back to their home inSparta, with a long stay in Egypt. In The Odyssey, Telemachus travels to Sparta in search of his father, Odys-seus, and finds Helen and Menelaus celebrating the marriage of their daughter, Hermione. Agamemnon,who has taken Priam’s daughter Cassandra as a slave, returns home to his wife, Clytemnestra, and his king-dom, Mycenae. Ever since Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia at the altar of Athena, however, Clytem-nestra has nurtured a vast resentment toward her husband. She has taken a man named Aegisthus as herlover, and upon Agamemnon’s return, the lovers murder Agamemnon in his bath and kill Cassandra as well.This story is the subject of Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon. Meanwhile, Aeneas, the only great Trojan warrior tosurvive the fall of Troy, wanders for many years, searching for a new home for his surviving fellow citizens.His adventures are recounted in Virgil’s epic Aeneid.

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Plot Overview

Nine years after the start of the Trojan War, the Greek (“Achaean”) army sacks Chryse, a townallied with Troy. During the battle, the Achaeans capture a pair of beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis.Agamemnon, the leader of the Achaean forces, takes Chryseis as his prize, and Achilles, the Achaeans’ great-est warrior, claims Briseis. Chryseis’s father, Chryses, who serves as a priest of the god Apollo, offers an enor-mous ransom in return for his daughter, but Agamemnon refuses to give Chryseis back. Chryses then prays toApollo, who sends a plague upon the Achaean camp.

After many Achaeans die, Agamemnon consults the prophet Calchas to determine the cause of the plague.When he learns that Chryseis is the cause, he reluctantly gives her up but then demands Briseis from Achillesas compensation. Furious at this insult, Achilles returns to his tent in the army camp and refuses to fight in thewar any longer. He vengefully yearns to see the Achaeans destroyed and asks his mother, the sea-nymph The-tis, to enlist the services of Zeus, king of the gods, toward this end. The Trojan and Achaean sides havedeclared a cease-fire with each other, but now the Trojans breach the treaty and Zeus comes to their aid.

With Zeus supporting the Trojans and Achilles refusing to fight, the Achaeans suffer great losses. Severaldays of fierce conflict ensue, including duels between Paris and Menelaus and between Hector and Ajax. TheAchaeans make no progress; even the heroism of the great Achaean warrior Diomedes proves fruitless. TheTrojans push the Achaeans back, forcing them to take refuge behind the ramparts that protect their ships.The Achaeans begin to nurture some hope for the future when a nighttime reconnaissance mission byDiomedes and Odysseus yields information about the Trojans’ plans, but the next day brings disaster. SeveralAchaean commanders become wounded, and the Trojans break through the Achaean ramparts. Theyadvance all the way up to the boundary of the Achaean camp and set fire to one of the ships. Defeat seemsimminent, because without the ships, the army will be stranded at Troy and almost certainly destroyed.

Concerned for his comrades but still too proud to help them himself, Achilles agrees to a plan proposed byNestor that will allow his beloved friend Patroclus to take his place in battle, wearing his armor. Patroclus is afine warrior, and his presence on the battlefield helps the Achaeans push the Trojans away from the ships andback to the city walls. But the counterattack soon falters. Apollo knocks Patroclus’s armor to the ground, andHector slays him. Fighting then breaks out as both sides try to lay claim to the body and armor. Hector endsup with the armor, but the Achaeans, thanks to a courageous effort by Menelaus and others, manage to bringthe body back to their camp. When Achilles discovers that Hector has killed Patroclus, he fills with such griefand rage that he agrees to reconcile with Agamemnon and rejoin the battle. Thetis goes to Mount Olympusand persuades the god Hephaestus to forge Achilles a new suit of armor, which she presents to him the nextmorning. Achilles then rides out to battle at the head of the Achaean army.

Meanwhile, Hector, not expecting Achilles to rejoin the battle, has ordered his men to camp outside thewalls of Troy. But when the Trojan army glimpses Achilles, it flees in terror back behind the city walls. Achil-les cuts down every Trojan he sees. Strengthened by his rage, he even fights the god of the river Xanthus, whois angered that Achilles has caused so many corpses to fall into his streams. Finally, Achilles confronts Hectoroutside the walls of Troy. Ashamed at the poor advice that he gave his comrades, Hector refuses to flee insidethe city with them. Achilles chases him around the city’s periphery three times, but the goddess Athena finallytricks Hector into turning around and fighting Achilles. In a dramatic duel, Achilles kills Hector. He thenlashes the body to the back of his chariot and drags it across the battlefield to the Achaean camp. Upon Achil-les’ arrival, the triumphant Achaeans celebrate Patroclus’s funeral with a long series of athletic games in hishonor. Each day for the next nine days, Achilles drags Hector’s body in circles around Patroclus’s funeral bier.

At last, the gods agree that Hector deserves a proper burial. Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort KingPriam, Hector’s father and the ruler of Troy, into the Achaean camp. Priam tearfully pleads with Achilles totake pity on a father bereft of his son and return Hector’s body. He invokes the memory of Achilles’ ownfather, Peleus. Deeply moved, Achilles finally relents and returns Hector’s corpse to the Trojans. Both sidesagree to a temporary truce, and Hector receives a hero’s funeral.


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Character List

The Achaeans (also called the “Argives” or “Danaans”)Achilles The son of the military man Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis. The most powerful

warrior in The Iliad, Achilles commands the Myrmidons, soldiers from his homeland of Phthia in Greece. Proud and headstrong, he takes offense easily and reacts with blistering indignation when he perceives that his honor has been slighted. Achilles’ wrath at Agamemnon for taking his war prize, the maiden Briseis, forms the main subject of The Iliad.

Agamemnon (also called “Atrides”) King of Mycenae and leader of the Achaean army; brother of King Menelaus of Sparta. Arrogant and often selfish, Agamemnon provides the Achaeans with strong but sometimes reckless and self-serving leadership. Like Achilles, he lacks consideration and forethought. Most saliently, his tactless appropriation of Achilles’ war prize, the maiden Briseis, creates a crisis for the Achaeans, when Achilles, insulted, withdraws from the war.

Patroclus Achilles’ beloved friend, companion, and advisor, Patroclus grew up alongside the great warrior in Phthia, under the guardianship of Peleus. Devoted to both Achilles and the Achaean cause, Patroclus stands by the enraged Achilles but also dons Achilles’ terrifying armor in an attempt to hold the Trojans back.

Odysseus A fine warrior and the cleverest of the Achaean commanders. Along with Nestor, Odysseus is one of the Achaeans’ two best public speakers. He helps mediate between Agamemnon and Achilles during their quarrel and often prevents them from making rash decisions.

Diomedes (also called “Tydides”) The youngest of the Achaean commanders, Diomedes is bold and sometimes proves impetuous. After Achilles withdraws from combat, Athena inspires Diomedes with such courage that he actually wounds two gods, Aphrodite and Ares.

Great Ajax An Achaean commander, Great Ajax (sometimes called “Telamonian Ajax” or simply “Ajax”) is the second mightiest Achaean warrior after Achilles. His extraordinary size and strength help him to wound Hector twice by hitting him with boulders. He often fights alongside Little Ajax, and the pair is frequently referred to as the “Aeantes.”

Little Ajax An Achaean commander, Little Ajax is the son of Oileus (to be distinguished from Great Ajax, the son of Telamon). He often fights alongside Great Ajax, whose stature and strength complement Little Ajax’s small size and swift speed. The two together are sometimes called the “Aeantes.”

Nestor King of Pylos and the oldest Achaean commander. Although age has taken much of Nestor’s physical strength, it has left him with great wisdom. He often acts as an advisor to the military commanders, especially Agamemnon. Nestor and Odysseus are the Achaeans’ most deft and persuasive orators, although Nestor’s speeches are sometimes long-winded.

Menelaus King of Sparta; the younger brother of Agamemnon. While it is the abduction of his wife, Helen, by the Trojan prince Paris that sparks the Trojan War, Menelaus proves


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quieter, less imposing, and less arrogant than Agamemnon. Though he has a stout heart, Menelaus is not among the mightiest Achaean warriors.

Idomeneus King of Crete and a respected commander. Idomeneus leads a charge against the Trojans in Book 13.

Machaon A healer. Machaon is wounded by Paris in Book 11.

Calchas An important soothsayer. Calchas’s identification of the cause of the plague ravaging the Achaean army in Book 1 leads inadvertently to the rift between Agamemnon and Achilles that occupies the first nineteen books of The Iliad.

Peleus Achilles’ father and the grandson of Zeus. Although his name often appears in the epic, Peleus never appears in person. Priam powerfully invokes the memory of Peleus when he convinces Achilles to return Hector’s corpse to the Trojans in Book 24.

Phoenix A kindly old warrior, Phoenix helped raise Achilles while he himself was still a young man. Achilles deeply loves and trusts Phoenix, and Phoenix mediates between him and Agamemnon during their quarrel.

The Myrmidons The soldiers under Achilles’ command, hailing from Achilles’ homeland, Phthia.

The TrojansHector A son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, Hector is the mightiest warrior in the Trojan

army. He mirrors Achilles in some of his flaws, but his bloodlust is not so great as that of Achilles. He is devoted to his wife, Andromache, and son, Astyanax, but resents his brother Paris for bringing war upon their family and city.

Priam King of Troy and husband of Hecuba, Priam is the father of fifty Trojan warriors, including Hector and Paris. Though too old to fight, he has earned the respect of both the Trojans and the Achaeans by virtue of his level-headed, wise, and benevolent rule. He treats Helen kindly, though he laments the war that her beauty has sparked.

Hecuba Queen of Troy, wife of Priam, and mother of Hector and Paris.

Paris (also known as “Alexander”) A son of Priam and Hecuba and brother of Hector. Paris’s abduction of the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaus, sparked the Trojan War. Paris is self-centered and often unmanly. He fights effectively with a bow and arrow (never with the more manly sword or spear) but often lacks the spirit for battle and prefers to sit in his room making love to Helen while others fight for him, thus earning both Hector’s and Helen’s scorn.

Helen Reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the ancient world, Helen left her husband, Menelaus, to run away with Paris. She loathes herself now for the misery that she has caused so many Trojan and Achaean men. Although her contempt extends to Paris as well, she continues to stay with him.

Aeneas A Trojan nobleman, the son of Aphrodite, and a mighty warrior. The Romans believed that Aeneas later founded their city (he is the protagonist of Virgil’s masterpiece the Aeneid).

Andromache Hector’s loving wife, Andromache begs Hector to withdraw from the war and save himself before the Achaeans kill him.

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Astyanax Hector and Andromache’s infant son.

Polydamas A young Trojan commander, Polydamas sometimes figures as a foil for Hector, proving cool-headed and prudent when Hector charges ahead. Polydamas gives the Trojans sound advice, but Hector seldom acts on it.

Glaucus A powerful Trojan warrior, Glaucus nearly fights a duel with Diomedes. The men’s exchange of armor after they realize that their families are friends illustrates the value that ancients placed on kinship and camaraderie.

Agenor A Trojan warrior who attempts to fight Achilles in Book 21. Agenor delays Achilles long enough for the Trojan army to flee inside Troy’s walls.

Dolon A Trojan sent to spy on the Achaean camp in Book 10.

Pandarus A Trojan archer. Pandarus’s shot at Menelaus in Book 4 breaks the temporary truce between the two sides.

Antenor A Trojan nobleman, advisor to King Priam, and father of many Trojan warriors. Antenor argues that Helen should be returned to Menelaus in order to end the war, but Paris refuses to give her up.

Sarpedon One of Zeus’s sons. Sarpedon’s fate seems intertwined with the gods’ quibbles, calling attention to the unclear nature of the gods’ relationship to Fate.

Chryseis Chryses’ daughter, a priest of Apollo in a Trojan-allied town.

Briseis A war prize of Achilles. When Agamemnon is forced to return Chryseis to her father, he appropriates Briseis as compensation, sparking Achilles’ great rage.

Chryses A priest of Apollo in a Trojan-allied town; the father of Chryseis, whom Agamemnon takes as a war prize.

The Gods and ImmortalsZeus King of the gods and husband of Hera, Zeus claims neutrality in the mortals’ conflict

and often tries to keep the other gods from participating in it. However, he throws his weight behind the Trojan side for much of the battle after the sulking Achilles has his mother, Thetis, ask the god to do so.

Hera Queen of the gods and Zeus’s wife, Hera is a conniving, headstrong woman. She often goes behind Zeus’s back in matters on which they disagree, working with Athena to crush the Trojans, whom she passionately hates.

Athena The goddess of wisdom, purposeful battle, and the womanly arts; Zeus’s daughter. Like Hera, Athena passionately hates the Trojans and often gives the Achaeans valuable aid.

Thetis A sea-nymph and the devoted mother of Achilles, Thetis gets Zeus to help the Trojans and punish the Achaeans at the request of her angry son. When Achilles finally rejoins the battle, she commissions Hephaestus to design him a new suit of armor.

Apollo A son of Zeus and twin brother of the goddess Artemis, Apollo is god of the arts and archery. He supports the Trojans and often intervenes in the war on their behalf.

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Aphrodite Goddess of love and daughter of Zeus, Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus but maintains a romantic relationship with Ares. She supports Paris and the Trojans throughout the war, though she proves somewhat ineffectual in battle.

Poseidon The brother of Zeus and god of the sea. Poseidon holds a long-standing grudge against the Trojans because they never paid him for helping them to build their city. He therefore supports the Achaeans in the war.

Hephaestus God of fire and husband of Aphrodite, Hephaestus is the gods’ metalsmith and is known as the lame or crippled god. Although the text doesn’t make clear his sympathies in the mortals’ struggle, he helps the Achaeans by forging a new set of armor for Achilles and by rescuing Achilles during his fight with a river god.

Artemis Goddess of the hunt, daughter of Zeus, and twin sister of Apollo. Artemis supports the Trojans in the war.

Ares God of war and lover of Aphrodite, Ares generally supports the Trojans in the war.

Hermes The messenger of the gods. Hermes escorts Priam to Achilles’ tent in Book 24.

Iris Zeus’s messenger.

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Analysis of Major Characters

AchillesAlthough Achilles possesses superhuman strength and has a close relationship with the gods, he may strikemodern readers as less than heroic. He has all the marks of a great warrior, and indeed proves the mightiestman in the Achaean army, but his deep-seated character flaws constantly impede his ability to act with nobil-ity and integrity. He cannot control his pride or the rage that surges up when that pride is injured. Thisattribute so poisons him that he abandons his comrades and even prays that the Trojans will slaughter them,all because he has been slighted at the hands of his commander, Agamemnon. Achilles is driven primarily bya thirst for glory. Part of him yearns to live a long, easy life, but he knows that his personal fate forces him tochoose between the two. Ultimately, he is willing to sacrifice everything else so that his name will be remem-bered.

Like most Homeric characters, Achilles does not develop significantly over the course of the epic.Although the death of Patroclus prompts him to seek reconciliation with Agamemnon, it does not alleviatehis rage, but instead redirects it toward Hector. The event does not make Achilles a more deliberative or self-reflective character. Bloodlust, wrath, and pride continue to consume him. He mercilessly mauls his oppo-nents, brazenly takes on the river Xanthus, ignobly desecrates the body of Hector, and savagely sacrificestwelve Trojan men at the funeral of Patroclus. He does not relent in this brutality until the final book of theepic, when King Priam, begging for the return of Hector’s desecrated corpse, appeals to Achilles’ memory ofhis father, Peleus. Yet it remains unclear whether a father’s heartbroken pleas really have transformed Achil-les, or whether this scene merely testifies to Achilles’ capacity for grief and acquaintance with anguish, whichwere already proven in his intense mourning of Patroclus.

AgamemnonAgamemnon, king of Mycenae and commander-in-chief of the Achaean army, resembles Achilles in somerespects. Though not nearly as strong, he has a similarly hot temper and prideful streak. When Agamem-non’s insulting demand that Achilles relinquish his war prize, Briseis, causes Achilles to withdraw angrilyfrom battle, the suffering that results for the Greek army owes as much to Agamemnon’s stubbornness as tothat of Achilles. But Agamemnon’s pride makes him more arrogant than Achilles. While Achilles’ prideflares up after it is injured, Agamemnon uses every opportunity to make others feel the effects of his. Healways expects the largest portions of the plunder, even though he takes the fewest risks in battle. Addition-ally, he insists upon leading the army, even though his younger brother Menelaus, whose wife, Helen, was sto-len by Paris, possesses the real grievance against the Trojans. He never allows the Achaeans to forget hiskingly status.

Agamemnon also differs from Achilles in his appreciation of subtlety. Achilles remains fiercely devoted tothose who love him but devotedly vicious to those who do him harm; he sees no shades of gray. Agamemnon,however, remains fundamentally concerned with himself, and he has the cunning to manipulate people andsituations for his own benefit. He does not trust his troops blindly, but tests their loyalty, as in Book 2.Although he reconciles with Achilles in Book 19, he shirks personal responsibility with a forked-tonguedindictment of Fate, Ruin, and the gods. Whereas Achilles is wholly consumed by his emotions, Agamemnondemonstrates a deft ability to keep himself—and others—under control. When he commits wrongs, he doesso not out of blind rage and frustration like Achilles, but out of amoral, self-serving cunning. For this reason,Homer’s portrait of Agamemnon ultimately proves unkind, and the reader never feels the same sympathy forhim as for Achilles.


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HectorHector is the mightiest warrior in the Trojan army. Although he meets his match in Achilles, he wreakshavoc on the Achaean army during Achilles’ period of absence. He leads the assault that finally penetrates theAchaean ramparts, he is the first and only Trojan to set fire to an Achaean ship, and he kills Patroclus. Yet hisleadership contains discernible flaws, especially toward the end of the epic, when the participation of firstPatroclus and then Achilles reinvigorates the Achaean army. He demonstrates a certain cowardice when,twice in Book 17, he flees Great Ajax. Indeed, he recovers his courage only after receiving the insults of hiscomrades—first Glaucus and then Aeneas. He can often become emotionally carried away as well, treatingPatroclus and his other victims with rash cruelty. Later, swept up by a burst of confidence, he foolishly ordersthe Trojans to camp outside Troy’s walls the night before Achilles returns to battle, thus causing a crucialdownfall the next day.

But although Hector may prove overly impulsive and insufficiently prudent, he does not come across asarrogant or overbearing, as Agamemnon does. Moreover, the fact that Hector fights in his homeland, unlikeany of the Achaean commanders, allows Homer to develop him as a tender, family-oriented man. Hectorshows deep, sincere love for his wife and children. Indeed, he even treats his brother Paris with forgivenessand indulgence, despite the man’s lack of spirit and preference for lovemaking over military duty. Hectornever turns violent with him, merely aiming frustrated words at his cowardly brother. Moreover, althoughHector loves his family, he never loses sight of his responsibility to Troy. Admittedly, he runs from Achilles atfirst and briefly entertains the delusional hope of negotiating his way out of a duel. However, in the end hestands up to the mighty warrior, even when he realizes that the gods have abandoned him. His refusal to fleeeven in the face of vastly superior forces makes him the most tragic figure in the poem.

analysis of major characters11

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Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Glory of WarOne can make a strong argument that The Iliad seems to celebrate war. Characters emerge as worthy or des-picable based on their degree of competence and bravery in battle. Paris, for example, doesn’t like to fight, andcorrespondingly receives the scorn of both his family and his lover. Achilles, on the other hand, wins eternalglory by explicitly rejecting the option of a long, comfortable, uneventful life at home. The text itself seems tosupport this means of judging character and extends it even to the gods. The epic holds up warlike deitiessuch as Athena for the reader’s admiration while it makes fun of gods who run from aggression, using thetimidity of Aphrodite and Artemis to create a scene of comic relief. To fight is to prove one’s honor and integ-rity, while to avoid warfare is to demonstrate laziness, ignoble fear, or misaligned priorities.

To be sure, The Iliad doesn’t ignore the realities of war. Men die gruesome deaths; women become slavesand concubines, estranged from their tearful fathers and mothers; a plague breaks out in the Achaean campand decimates the army. In the face of these horrors, even the mightiest warriors occasionally experience fear,and the poet tells us that both armies regret that the war ever began. Though Achilles points out that all men,whether brave or cowardly, meet the same death in the end, the poem never asks the reader to question thelegitimacy of the ongoing struggle. Homer never implies that the fight constitutes a waste of time or humanlife. Rather, he portrays each side as having a justifiable reason to fight and depicts warfare as a respectableand even glorious manner of settling the dispute.

Military Glory over Family LifeA theme in The Iliad closely related to the glory of war is the predominance of military glory over family. Thetext clearly admires the reciprocal bonds of deference and obligation that bind Homeric families together, butit respects much more highly the pursuit of kleos, the “glory” or “renown” that one wins in the eyes of othersby performing great deeds. Homer constantly forces his characters to choose between their loved ones and thequest for kleos, and the most heroic characters invariably choose the latter. Andromache pleads with Hectornot to risk orphaning his son, but Hector knows that fighting among the front ranks represents the onlymeans of “winning my father great glory.” Paris, on the other hand, chooses to spend time with Helen ratherthan fight in the war; accordingly, both the text and the other characters treat him with derision. Achillesdebates returning home to live in ease with his aging father, but he remains at Troy to win glory by killingHector and avenging Patroclus. The gravity of the decisions that Hector and Achilles make is emphasized bythe fact that each knows his fate ahead of time. The characters prize so highly the martial values of honor,noble bravery, and glory that they willingly sacrifice the chance to live a long life with those they love.

The Impermanence of Human Life and Its CreationsAlthough The Iliad chronicles a very brief period in a very long war, it remains acutely conscious of the spe-cific ends awaiting each of the people involved. Troy is destined to fall, as Hector explains to his wife in Book6. The text announces that Priam and all of his children will die—Hector dies even before the close of thepoem. Achilles will meet an early end as well, although not within the pages of The Iliad. Homer constantlyalludes to this event, especially toward the end of the epic, making clear that even the greatest of men cannotescape death. Indeed, he suggests that the very greatest—the noblest and bravest—may yield to death soonerthan others.


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Similarly, The Iliad recognizes, and repeatedly reminds its readers, that the creations of mortals have amortality of their own. The glory of men does not live on in their constructions, institutions, or cities. Theprophecy of Calchas, as well as Hector’s tender words with Andromache and the debates of the gods, con-stantly remind the reader that Troy’s lofty ramparts will fall. But the Greek fortifications will not last muchlonger. Though the Greeks erect their bulwarks only partway into the epic, Apollo and Poseidon plan theirdestruction as early as Book 12. The poem thus emphasizes the ephemeral nature of human beings and theirworld, suggesting that mortals should try to live their lives as honorably as possible, so that they will beremembered well. For if mortals’ physical bodies and material creations cannot survive them, perhaps theirwords and deeds can. Certainly the existence of Homer’s poem would attest to this notion.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

ArmorOne would naturally expect a martial epic to depict men in arms, but armor in The Iliad emerges as some-thing more than merely a protective cover for a soldier’s body. In fact, Homer often portrays a hero’s armor ashaving an aura of its own, separate from its wearer. In one of the epic’s more tender scenes, Hector removeshis helmet to keep its horsehair crest from frightening his son Astyanax. When Patroclus wears Achilles’armor to scare the Trojans and drive them from the ships, Apollo and Hector quickly see through the dis-guise. Then, when a fight breaks out over Patroclus’s fallen body, the armor goes one way and the corpseanother. Hector dons the armor, but it ends up betraying him, as it were, in favor of its former owner. Achil-les’ knowledge of its vulnerabilities makes it easier for him to run Hector through with his sword. By thispoint in the story, Achilles has a new set of armor, fashioned by the god Hephaestus, which also seems to havea life of its own. While Achilles’ mortal body can be wounded—and indeed, the poem reminds us of Achilles’impending death on many occasions—Homer describes the divine armor as virtually impervious to assault.

BurialWhile martial epics naturally touch upon the subject of burial, The Iliad lingers over it. The burial of Hectoris given particular attention, as it marks the melting of Achilles’ crucial rage. The mighty Trojan receives aspectacular funeral that comes only after an equally spectacular fight over his corpse. Patroclus’s burial alsoreceives much attention in the text, as Homer devotes an entire book to the funeral and games in the warrior’shonor. The poem also describes burials unconnected to particular characters, such as in Book 7, when botharmies undertake a large-scale burial of their largely unnamed dead. The Iliad’s interest in burial partlyreflects the interests of ancient Greek culture as a whole, which stressed proper burial as a requirement for thesoul’s peaceful rest. However, it also reflects the grim outlook of The Iliad, its interest in the relentlessness offate and the impermanence of human life.

FireFire emerges as a recurrent image in The Iliad, often associated with internal passions such as fury or rage, butalso with their external manifestations. Homer describes Achilles as “blazing” in Book 1 and compares thesparkle of his freshly donned armor to the sun. Moreover, the poem often compares a hero’s charge or anonslaught of troops to a conflagration sweeping through a field. But fire doesn’t appear just allegorically ormetaphorically; it appears materially as well. The Trojans light fires in Book 8 to watch the Achaean armyand to prevent it from slipping away by night. They constantly threaten the Achaean ships with fire andindeed succeed in torching one of them. Thus, whether present literally or metaphorically, the frequencywith which fire appears in The Iliad indicates the poem’s over-arching concern with instances of profoundpower and destruction.

themes, motifs & symbols13


Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Achaean ShipsThe Achaean ships symbolize the future of the Greek race. They constitute the army’s only means of convey-ing itself home, whether in triumph or defeat. Even if the Achaean army were to lose the war, the ships couldbring back survivors; the ships’ destruction, however, would mean the annihilation—or automatic exile—ofevery last soldier. Homer implies that some men shirked the war and stayed in Greece, while others, such asPeleus, were too old to fight. However, to Homer’s original audience, the Achaean warriors at Troy repre-sented more than a mere subpopulation of the Greek race. Homer’s contemporaries believed that the heroesrepresented here actually lived historically, as real kings who ruled the various city-states of Greece in theirearliest years. Ancient audiences regarded them as playing definitive roles in the formation and developmentof Greece as they knew it. The mass death of these leaders and role models would have meant the decimationof a civilization.

The Shield of AchillesThe Iliad is an extremely compressed narrative. Although it treats many of the themes of human experience, itdoes so within the scope of a few days out of a ten-year war. The shield constitutes only a tiny part in this mar-tial saga, a single piece of armor on a single man in one of the armies—yet it provides perspective on the entirewar. Depicting normal life in peacetime, it symbolizes the world beyond the battlefield, and implies that warconstitutes only one aspect of existence. Life as a whole, the shield reminds us, includes feasts and dances andmarketplaces and crops being harvested. Human beings may serve not only as warriors but also as artisansand laborers in the fields. Not only do they work, they also play, as the shield depicts with its dancing children.Interestingly, although Homer glorifies war and the life of the warrior throughout most of his epic, his depic-tion of everyday life as it appears on the shield comes across as equally noble, perhaps preferable.

themes, motifs & symbols14

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Summary & Analysis

Book 1Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses

(See QUOTATIONS, p. 35)

SummaryThe poet invokes a muse to aid him in telling the story of the rage of Achilles, the greatest Greek hero to fightin the Trojan War. The narrative begins nine years after the start of the war, as the Achaeans sack a Trojan-allied town and capture two beautiful maidens, Chryseis and Briseis. Agamemnon, commander-in-chief ofthe Achaean army, takes Chryseis as his prize. Achilles, one of the Achaeans’ most valuable warriors, claimsBriseis. Chryseis’s father, a man named Chryses who serves as a priest of the god Apollo, begs Agamemnon toreturn his daughter and offers to pay an enormous ransom. When Agamemnon refuses, Chryses prays toApollo for help.

Apollo sends a plague upon the Greek camp, causing the death of many soldiers. After ten days of suffer-ing, Achilles calls an assembly of the Achaean army and asks for a soothsayer to reveal the cause of the plague.Calchas, a powerful seer, stands up and offers his services. Though he fears retribution from Agamemnon,Calchas reveals the plague as a vengeful and strategic move by Chryses and Apollo. Agamemnon flies into arage and says that he will return Chryseis only if Achilles gives him Briseis as compensation.

Agamemnon’s demand humiliates and infuriates the proud Achilles. The men argue, and Achilles threat-ens to withdraw from battle and take his people, the Myrmidons, back home to Phthia. Agamemnon threat-ens to go to Achilles’ tent in the army’s camp and take Briseis himself. Achilles stands poised to draw hissword and kill the Achaean commander when the goddess Athena, sent by Hera, the queen of the gods,appears to him and checks his anger. Athena’s guidance, along with a speech by the wise advisor Nestor,finally succeeds in preventing the duel.

That night, Agamemnon puts Chryseis on a ship back to her father and sends heralds to have Briseisescorted from Achilles’ tent. Achilles prays to his mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, to ask Zeus, king of the gods,to punish the Achaeans. He relates to her the tale of his quarrel with Agamemnon, and she promises to takethe matter up with Zeus—who owes her a favor—as soon as he returns from a thirteen-day period of feastingwith the Aethiopians. Meanwhile, the Achaean commander Odysseus is navigating the ship that Chryseis hasboarded. When he lands, he returns the maiden and makes sacrifices to Apollo. Chryses, overjoyed to see hisdaughter, prays to the god to lift the plague from the Achaean camp. Apollo acknowledges his prayer, andOdysseus returns to his comrades.

But the end of the plague on the Achaeans only marks the beginning of worse suffering. Ever since hisquarrel with Agamemnon, Achilles has refused to participate in battle, and, after twelve days, Thetis makesher appeal to Zeus, as promised. Zeus is reluctant to help the Trojans, for his wife, Hera, favors the Greeks,but he finally agrees. Hera becomes livid when she discovers that Zeus is helping the Trojans, but her sonHephaestus persuades her not to plunge the gods into conflict over the mortals.

AnalysisLike other ancient epic poems, The Iliad presents its subject clearly from the outset. Indeed, the poem namesits focus in its opening word: menin, or “rage.” Specifically, The Iliad concerns itself with the rage of Achil-les—how it begins, how it cripples the Achaean army, and how it finally becomes redirected toward the Tro-jans. Although the Trojan War as a whole figures prominently in the work, this larger conflict ultimatelyprovides the text with background rather than subject matter. By the time Achilles and Agamemnon entertheir quarrel, the Trojan War has been going on for nearly ten years. Achilles’ absence from battle, on the


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other hand, lasts only a matter of days, and the epic ends soon after his return. The poem describes neither theorigins nor the end of the war that frames Achilles’ wrath. Instead, it scrutinizes the origins and the end ofthis wrath, thus narrowing the scope of the poem from a larger conflict between warring peoples to a smallerone between warring individuals.

But while the poem focuses most centrally on the rage of a mortal, it also concerns itself greatly with themotivations and actions of the gods. Even before Homer describes the quarrel between Achilles andAgamemnon, he explains that Apollo was responsible for the conflict. In general, the gods in the poem partic-ipate in mortal affairs in two ways. First, they act as external forces upon the course of events, as when Apollosends the plague upon the Achaean army. Second, they represent internal forces acting on individuals, aswhen Athena, the goddess of wisdom, prevents Achilles from abandoning all reason and persuades him to cutAgamemnon with words and insults rather than his sword. But while the gods serve a serious function in par-tially determining grave matters of peace and violence, life and death, they also serve one final function—thatof comic relief. Their intrigues, double-dealings, and inane squabbles often appear humorously petty in com-parison with the wholesale slaughter that pervades the mortal realm. The bickering between Zeus and Hera,for example, provides a much lighter parallel to the heated exchange between Agamemnon and Achilles.

Indeed, in their submission to base appetites and shallow grudges, the gods of The Iliad often seem moreprone to human folly than the human characters themselves. Zeus promises to help the Trojans not out of anyprofound moral consideration but rather because he owes Thetis a favor. Similarly, his hesitation in makingthis promise stems not from some worthy desire to let fate play itself out but from his fear of annoying hiswife. When Hera does indeed become annoyed, Zeus is able to silence her only by threatening to strangle her.Such instances of partisanship, hurt feelings, and domestic strife, common among the gods of The Iliad, por-tray the gods and goddesses as less invincible and imperturbable than we might imagine them to be. Weexpect these sorts of excessive sensitivities and occasionally dysfunctional relationships of the human charac-ters but not the divine ones.

The clash between Achilles and Agamemnon highlights one of the most dominant aspects of the ancientGreek value system: the vital importance of personal honor. Both Agamemnon and Achilles prioritize theirrespective individual glories over the well-being of the Achaean forces. Agamemnon believes that, as chief ofthe Achaean forces, he deserves the highest available prize—Briseis—and is thus willing to antagonizeAchilles, the most crucial Achaean warrior, to secure what he believes is properly owed to him. Achilleswould rather defend his claim to Briseis, his personal spoil of victory and thus what he believes is properlyowed to him, than defuse the situation. Each man considers deferring to the other a humiliation rather thanan act of honor or duty; each thus puts his own interest ahead of that of his people, jeopardizing the war effort.

Book 2

SummaryTo help the Trojans, as promised, Zeus sends a false dream to Agamemnon in which a figure in the form ofNestor persuades Agamemnon that he can take Troy if he launches a full-scale assault on the city’s walls. Thenext day, Agamemnon gathers his troops for attack, but, to test their courage, he lies and tells them that he hasdecided to give up the war and return to Greece. To his dismay, they eagerly run to their ships.

When Hera sees the Achaeans fleeing, she alerts Athena, who inspires Odysseus, the most eloquent of theAchaeans, to call the men back. He shouts words of encouragement and insult to goad their pride and restoretheir confidence. He reminds them of the prophecy that the soothsayer Calchas gave when the Achaeans werefirst mustering their soldiers back in Greece: a water snake had slithered to shore and devoured a nest of ninesparrows, and Calchas interpreted the sign to mean that nine years would pass before the Achaeans wouldfinally take Troy. As Odysseus reminds them, they vowed at that time that they would not abandon theirstruggle until the city fell.

Nestor now encourages Agamemnon to arrange his troops by city and clan so that they can fight side byside with their friends and kin. The poet takes this opportunity to enter into a catalog of the army. Afterinvoking the muses to aid his memory, he details the cities that have contributed troops to the Greek cause,the number of troops that each has contributed, and who leads each contingent. At the end of the list, the poetsingles out the bravest of the Achaeans, Achilles and Ajax among them. When Zeus sends a messenger to the

summary & analysis16


Trojan court, telling them of the Greeks’ awesome formation, the Trojans muster their own troops under thecommand of Priam’s son Hector. The poet then catalogs the Trojan forces.

AnalysisBy the end of Book 2, Homer has introduced all of The Iliad’s major characters on the Greek side—his catalogof the Trojan troops at the end of Book 2 leads naturally into an introduction of the Trojan leadership in Book3. The poem has already established the characters of Agamemnon, proud and headstrong, and Achilles,mighty but temperamental, whose quarrel dominates the epic. Now the poet provides description of two sup-porting actors, Odysseus and Nestor. Though both of these figures appear in Book 1, the army’s flight to itsships in Book 2 motivates their first important speeches and thus establishes a crucial component of their rolein the epic: they are the wise, foresighted advisors whose shrewdness and clarity of mind will keep the Achae-ans on their course. Furthermore, in successfully restoring the troops’ morale, Odysseus and Nestor confirmtheir reputation as the Achaeans’ most talented rhetoricians.

In addition to prompting the speeches of Odysseus and Nestor, the Achaeans’ flight to the ships servesthree other important purposes in the narrative. First, it shows just how dire the Greek situation has become:even the army’s foremost leader, Agamemnon, has failed to recognize the low morale of the troops; he iswholly blindsided by his men’s willingness to give up the war. The eagerness with which the troops flee backto the harbor not only testifies to the suffering that they must have already endured but also bodes ill for theirfuture efforts, which will prove much harder given the soldiers’ homesickness and lack of motivation. Butsecond, and on the other hand, by pointing out the intensity of the Greeks’ suffering, the episode emphasizesthe glory of the Greeks’ eventual victory. Homer’s audience knew well that the war between the Greeks andTrojans ended in Troy’s defeat. This episode indicates just how close the Greek army came to abandoning theeffort entirely and returning to Greece in disgrace. That the troops prove able to rise from the depths ofdespair to the heights of military triumph conveys the immensity of the Greek achievement.

Third, the flight to the ships indirectly results in the famous catalog of the Achaean forces. Nestor’s advicethat the troops be arranged by city ensures that the soldiers will be motivated: by fighting side by side withtheir closest friends, they will have an emotional investment in the army’s success, and their leaders will moreeasily be able to identify them as either cowardly or courageous. While the catalog of forces may seem rathertedious to modern readers—though it does build tension by setting up an all-out conflict—it would havegreatly inspired Homeric audiences. Even the effort seemingly necessary to recount the catalog is epic andgrandiose. The poet seems to invoke all nine Muses as he proclaims, “The mass of troops I could never tally . .. / not even if I had ten tongues and ten mouths” (2.577–578). The sack of Troy was a Panhellenic effort, andeven the smallest cities played a part. Each Greek who heard the tale could take pride in hearing the name ofhis city and its ancient, mythic leaders mentioned as participants in this heroic achievement. By calling thesemen to mind, Homer doesn’t bore his audience but rather stirs them, evoking their honorable heritage.

Books 3–4

Summary: Book 3The Trojan army marches from the city gates and advances to meet the Achaeans. Paris, the Trojan princewho precipitated the war by stealing the beautiful Helen from her husband, Menelaus, challenges the Achae-ans to single combat with any of their warriors. When Menelaus steps forward, however, Paris loses heart andshrinks back into the Trojan ranks. Hector, Paris’s brother and the leader of the Trojan forces, chastises Parisfor his cowardice. Stung by Hector’s insult, Paris finally agrees to a duel with Menelaus, declaring that thecontest will establish peace between Trojans and Achaeans by deciding once and for all which man shall haveHelen as his wife. Hector presents the terms to Menelaus, who accepts. Both armies look forward to endingthe war at last.

As Paris and Menelaus prepare for combat, the goddess Iris, disguised as Hector’s sister Laodice, visitsHelen in Priam’s palace. Iris urges Helen to go to the city gates and witness the battle about to be fought overher. Helen finds the city’s elders, including Priam, gathered there. Priam asks Helen about the strapping



young Achaeans he sees, and she identifies Agamemnon, Ajax, and Odysseus. Priam marvels at theirstrength and splendor but eventually leaves the scene, unable to bear watching Paris fight to the death.

Paris and Menelaus arm themselves and begin their duel. Neither is able to fell the other with his spear.Menelaus breaks his sword over Paris’s helmet. He then grabs Paris by the helmet and begins dragging himthrough the dirt, but Aphrodite, an ally of the Trojans, snaps the strap of the helmet so that it breaks off inMenelaus’s hands. Frustrated, Menelaus retrieves his spear and is about to drive it home into Paris whenAphrodite whisks Paris away to his room in Priam’s palace. She summons Helen there too. Helen, afterupbraiding Paris for his cowardice, lies down in bed with him. Back on the battlefield, both the Trojans andthe Greeks search for Paris, who seems to have magically disappeared. Agamemnon insists that Menelaus haswon the duel, and he demands Helen back.

Summary: Book 4Meanwhile, the gods engage in their own duels. Zeus argues that Menelaus has won the duel and that the warshould end as the mortals had agreed. But Hera, who has invested much in the Achaean cause, wants nothingless than the complete destruction of Troy. In the end, Zeus gives way and sends Athena to the battlefield torekindle the fighting. Disguised as a Trojan soldier, Athena convinces the archer Pandarus to take aim atMenelaus. Pandarus fires, but Athena, who wants merely to give the Achaeans a pretext for fighting, deflectsthe arrow so that it only wounds Menelaus.

Agamemnon now rallies the Achaean ranks. He meets Nestor, Odysseus, and Diomedes, among others,and spurs them on by challenging their pride or recounting the great deeds of their fathers. Battle breaks out,and the blood flows freely. None of the major characters is killed or wounded, but Odysseus and Great Ajaxkill a number of minor Trojan figures. The gods also become involved, with Athena helping the Achaeansand Apollo helping the Trojans. The efforts toward a truce have failed utterly.

Analysis: Books 3–4While the first two books introduce the commanders of the Achaean forces, the next two introduce the Tro-jan forces. Priam, Hector, Paris, and Helen of Troy (formerly, of course, queen of Sparta) all make their firstappearances in Book 3, and their personalities begin to emerge. In particular, Paris’s glibness throws him intostark contrast with Hector and many of the Achaean leaders whom the audience has already encountered.While the sight of Menelaus causes Paris to flee, Hector, much more devoted to the ideal of heroic honor, crit-icizes him for the disgrace that he has brought upon not only himself but also the entire Trojan army. Paris’sfight with Menelaus proves embarrassing, and he must be rescued—not by any particularly fierce deity butrather by Aphrodite, the goddess of love (she is even referred to, in Book 5, as the “coward goddess” [5.371]).Though Paris sulkily blames his misfortune in the fight on the gods whom he claims aided Menelaus, Homerhimself makes no mention of these gods, and the suffering that Menelaus undergoes in the fight suggests thathe had no divine help. But perhaps most outrageous is Paris’s retreat to his marriage bed. While the rest of theTrojan army is forced to fight for the woman whom he stole from the Achaeans, he sleeps with her. Thisaffront to the heroic code of conduct disgusts even the Trojan rank and file, who, we read, “hated [Paris] likedeath” (3.533).

The other Trojan characters emerge much more sympathetically, and the poem presents its first mortalfemale character, Helen, in a warm light. Although Helen ran away with Paris and thus bears some of theresponsibility for the deaths of so many of her countrymen, unlike Paris, she doesn’t take her role in the car-nage lightly. Her labeling of herself a “hateful” creature and her admission that she wishes that she had diedthe day Paris brought her to Troy demonstrate her shame and self-loathing (3.467). Her remorseful reflec-tions upon the homeland that she left behind as she surveys the Achaean ranks arrayed beneath the walls ofTroy further reveal her regret and sense of having done wrong. The scene becomes particularly poignantwhen she wonders whether her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, whom she cannot find in the crowd, mightpossibly have refused to join the Greek expedition and fight for such an accursed sister. Tragically, she doesn’trealize, as Homer points out, that their absence signifies not their anger but their death in battle.

The Iliad presents no clear villains. Though the story is told from the Greek perspective, it doesn’t demon-ize the Trojans. In fact, in wars that occurred before the start of the poem, such as the struggle against theAmazons that Priam mentions, the Trojans allied with the Achaeans. Both armies suffer in the current vio-



lence, and both feel relieved to hear that the duel between Menelaus and Paris may end it. When the two sidesconsecrate their truce with a sacrifice, soldiers in both armies pray that, should the cease-fire be broken, theguilty side be butchered and its women raped—whichever side that may be. When the cease-fire does fail andopen conflict between the two armies erupts for the first time in the epic, the carnage consumes both sideswith equally horrific intensity. Furthermore, the text doesn’t unequivocally imply the Trojans’ guilt in thebreach—Pandarus shoots at Menelaus only under Athena’s persuasion. Indeed, the gods seem to be the onlyones who take pleasure in the conflict, and the mortals, like toy soldiers, provide Hera and Athena an easyway to settle their disagreement with Zeus.

Books 5–6

Summary: Book 5Ah what chilling blows

we suffer—thanks to our own conflicting wills—whenever we show these mortal men some kindness.


As the battle rages, Pandarus wounds the Achaean hero Diomedes. Diomedes prays to Athena for revenge,and the goddess endows him with superhuman strength and the extraordinary power to discern gods on thefield of battle. She warns him, however, not to challenge any of them except Aphrodite. Diomedes fights likea man possessed, slaughtering all Trojans he meets. The overconfident Pandarus meets a gruesome death atthe end of Diomedes’ spear, and Aeneas, the noble Trojan hero immortalized in Virgil’s Aeneid, likewisereceives a wounding at the hands of the divinely assisted Diomedes. When Aeneas’s mother, Aphrodite,comes to his aid, Diomedes wounds her too, cutting her wrist and sending her back to Mount Olympus. Aph-rodite’s mother, Dione, heals her, and Zeus warns Aphrodite not to try her hand at warfare again. WhenApollo goes to tend to Aeneas in Aphrodite’s stead, Diomedes attacks him as well. This act of aggressionbreaches Diomedes’ agreement with Athena, who had limited him to challenging Aphrodite alone amongthe gods. Apollo, issuing a stern warning to Diomedes, effortlessly pushes him aside and whisks Aeneas off ofthe field. Aiming to enflame the passions of Aeneas’s comrades, he leaves a replica of Aeneas’s body on theground. He also rouses Ares, god of war, to fight on the Trojan side.

With the help of the gods, the Trojans begin to take the upper hand in battle. Hector and Ares prove toomuch for the Achaeans; the sight of a hero and god battling side by side frightens even Diomedes. The TrojanSarpedon kills the Achaean Tlepolemus. Odysseus responds by slaughtering entire lines of Trojans, but Hec-tor cuts down still more Greeks. Finally, Hera and Athena appeal to Zeus, who gives them permission tointervene on the Achaeans’ behalf. Hera rallies the rest of the Achaean troops, while Athena encouragesDiomedes. She withdraws her earlier injunction not to attack any of the gods except Aphrodite and evenjumps in the chariot with him to challenge Ares. The divinely driven chariot charges Ares, and, in the seismiccollision that follows, Diomedes wounds Ares. Ares immediately flies to Mount Olympus and complains toZeus, but Zeus counters that Ares deserved his injury. Athena and Hera also depart the scene of the battle.

Summary: Book 6With the gods absent, the Achaean forces again overwhelm the Trojans, who draw back toward the city.Menelaus considers accepting a ransom in return for the life of Adrestus, a Trojan he has subdued, butAgamemnon persuades him to kill the man outright. Nestor senses the Trojans weakening and urges theAchaeans not to bother stripping their fallen enemies of their weapons but to focus instead on killing as manyas possible while they still have the upper hand. The Trojans anticipate downfall, and the soothsayer Helenusurges Hector to return to Troy to ask his mother, Queen Hecuba, along with her noblewomen, to pray formercy at the temple of Athena. Hector follows Helenus’s advice and gives his mother and the other womentheir instructions. He then visits his brother Paris, who has withdrawn from battle, claiming he is too grief-stricken to participate. Hector and Helen heap scorn on him for not fighting, and at last he arms himself andreturns to battle. Hector also prepares to return but first visits his wife, Andromache, whom he finds nursing



their son Astyanax by the walls of the city. As she cradles the child, she anxiously watches the struggle in theplain below. Andromache begs Hector not to go back, but he insists that he cannot escape his fate, whatever itmay be. He kisses Astyanax, who, although initially frightened by the crest on Hector’s helmet, greets hisfather happily. Hector then departs. Andromache, convinced that he will soon die, begins to mourn his death.Hector meets Paris on his way out of the city, and the brothers prepare to rejoin the battle.

Analysis: Books 5–6The battle narratives in Books 5 and 6 (and the very end of Book 4) constitute the epic’s first descriptions ofwarfare, and, within the war as a whole, the first battles in which the sulking Achilles has not fought.Diomedes attempts to make up for the great warrior’s absence; the soothsayer Helenus declares, in referenceto Diomedes, that “[h]e is the strongest Argive now” (6.115). The Achaeans still feel the consequences of theirmightiest soldier’s prideful refusal to fight, however, and remain on the defensive for much of Book 5. Evenwith divine help, Diomedes cannot quite provide the force that Achilles did. As Hera rightly observes, “Aslong as brilliant Achilles stalked the front / no Trojan would ever venture beyond the Dardan [Trojan] Gates”(5.907–908). As potent as the rage that Achilles feels toward Agamemnon is his ability to intimidate the Tro-jans.

Homer communicates the scope and intensity of the battle with long descriptive passages of mass slaugh-ter, yet he intersperses these descriptions with intimate characterization, thereby personalizing the violence.Homer often fleshes out the characters being killed by telling stories about their backgrounds or upbringings.He uses this technique, for instance, when, after Aeneas fells Orsilochus and Crethon midway through Book5, he recounts the story of how these twins joined up with the Achaean ranks. Furthermore, Homer oftenalternates between depictions of Trojan and Achaean deaths, sometimes rendering the victor of the firstexchange the victim of the next. In this way, he injects a sense of rhythm into what would otherwise be anumbing litany of mass destruction.

The battle narratives also give Homer the chance to comment on the similarities and differences betweenthe mortals and the gods. For while the mortals engage in their armed warfare, the gods engage in their ownsquabbles. Invariably, the latter conflicts appear less serious, more frivolous, and almost petty. Although thedisagreements between the gods sometimes result in further violence among the mortals, as when Athenapersuades Pandarus to defy the cease-fire, in Book 4, the gods’ loyalties and motivations ultimately emerge asless profound than those of the humans. The gods base their support for one side or the other not on principlebut on which heroes they happen to favor. They scheme or make pacts to help one another but often fail tohonor these pacts. Ares, for example, though having vowed to support the Achaeans, fights alongside theTrojans throughout Books 5 and 6. Furthermore, when the tide of war doesn’t flow in the direction that thegods desire, they whine to Zeus. In contrast with the glorious tragedy of the human conflict, the conflictbetween the gods has the feel of a dysfunctional family feud.

Perhaps Homer means to comment on the importance of living nobly and bravely: with such fickle godscontrolling human fate, one cannot predict how or when death will come; one can only work to make lifemeaningful in its own right. Hector explains this notion to his wife, Andromache, in their famous encounter,illustrating his perception of what the central issue of the battle is—kleos, or “glory.” He knows that his fate isinescapable, but, like all Homeric heroes, he feels compelled to live his life in search of this individual glory.

This encounter also serves to humanize the great warrior Hector: the audience can relate to him as heraces, fearing defeat, to his wife and breaks into a grin at the sight of his beloved infant son. Homer achievessuch great pathos not only with the words of Hector and Andromache but also with setting and effectivedetailing. By placing their meeting above the Scaean Gates—the grand entrance to the city, where many con-frontations have already occurred—Homer elevates Hector and Andromache’s love to the level of the ragethat pervades the epic. Homer’s use of detail proves similarly crucial to the scene’s poignancy. As Androma-che nurses baby Astyanax, the audience is reminded of the way in which war separates families and deprivesthe innocent. When Hector hastily removes his crested helmet upon seeing how it frightens Astyanax, werealize that this great warrior, who has just affirmed his glorious aspirations and his iron will to fight, alsopossesses a tender side. The scene at once relieves the tension heightened by the descriptions of battle andemphasizes these battles’ tragic gravity.



Books 7–8

Summary: Book 7With the return of Hector and Paris the battle escalates, but Apollo and Athena soon decide to end the battlefor the day. They plan a duel to stop the present bout of fighting: Hector approaches the Achaean line andoffers himself to anyone who will fight him. Only Menelaus has the courage to step forward, but Agamem-non talks him out of it, knowing full well that Menelaus is no match for Hector. Nestor, too old to fight Hec-tor himself, passionately exhorts his comrades to respond to the challenge. Nine Achaeans finally stepforward. A lottery is held, and Great Ajax wins.

Hector and Ajax begin their duel by tossing spears, but neither proves successful. They then use theirlances, and Ajax draws Hector’s blood. The two are about to clash with swords when heralds, spurred byZeus, call off the fight on account of nightfall. The two heroes exchange gifts and end their duel with a pact offriendship.

That night, Nestor gives a speech urging the Achaeans to ask for a day to bury their dead. He also advisesthem to build fortifications around their camp. Meanwhile, in the Trojan camp, King Priam makes a similarproposal regarding the Trojan dead. In addition, his advisor Antenor asks Paris to give up Helen and therebyend the war. Paris refuses but offers to return all of the loot that he took with her from Sparta. But when theTrojans present this offer to the Achaeans the next day, the Achaeans sense the Trojans’ desperation andreject the compromise. Both sides agree, however, to observe a day of respite to bury their respective dead.Zeus and Poseidon watch the Achaeans as they build their fortifications, planning to tear them down as soonas the men leave.

Summary: Book 8After prohibiting the other gods from interfering in the course of the war, Zeus travels to Mount Ida, over-looking the Trojan plain. There he weighs the fates of Troy and Achaea in his scale, and the Achaean sidesinks down. With a shower of lightning upon the Achaean army, Zeus turns the tide of battle in the Trojans’favor, and the Greeks retreat in terror. Riding the Trojans’ surge in power, Hector seeks out Nestor, whostands stranded in the middle of the battlefield. Diomedes scoops Nestor into his chariot just in time, andHector pursues the two of them, intent on driving them all the way to the Greek fortifications, where he plansto set fire to their ships. Hera, seeing the Achaean army collapsing, inspires Agamemnon to rouse his troops.He stirs up their pride, begs them to have heart, and prays for relief from Zeus, who finally sends a sign—aneagle carrying a fawn in its talons. The divine symbol inspires the Achaeans to fight back.

As the Achaeans struggle to regain their power, the archer Teucer fells many Trojans. But Hector finallywounds him, reversing the tide of battle yet again. Hector drives the Greeks behind their fortifications, all theway to their ships. Athena and Hera, unable to bear any further suffering on the part of their favored Greeks,prepare to enter the fray, but Zeus sends the goddess Iris to warn them of the consequences of interfering.Knowing that they cannot compete with Zeus, Athena and Hera relent and return to Mount Olympus. WhenZeus returns, he tells them that the next morning will provide their last chance to save the Achaeans. He notesthat only Achilles can prevent the Greeks’ destruction.

That night, the Trojans, confident in their dominance, camp outside their city’s walls, and Hector ordershis men to light hundreds of campfires so that the Greeks cannot escape unobserved. Nightfall has saved theGreeks for now, but Hector plans to finish them off the next day.

AnalysisThe Achaeans’ success so far despite Achilles’ absence, along with Paris’s cowardice and Hector’s hopelessdespair in Book 6, have seemed to spell doom for the Trojans. Yet, by the end of Book 8, we recall the Achae-ans’ bravado with great irony. Hector has nearly seized their ambitious fortifications, and the Trojans appearmore determined than ever. The mutual exasperation with the war that motivates the cease-fire of Books 3and 4 has now disappeared. No longer wanting to end the war, the Trojans desire to win it; that they campright beside the Achaeans demonstrates their hunger for battle. The severity of the Achaeans’ impending loss



becomes all too clear in Hector’s determination to burn their ships. In a sense, the ships symbolize the futureof all Achaea, for although some Achaeans stayed behind in Greece, very few of the land’s fathers and sonsremain at home. Moreover, the men who have come to Troy constitute the “best of the Achaeans,” as thepoem continually calls them. Should the Trojans burn their ships, the strongest, noblest men and rulers of theAchaean race would either die in flames or remain stranded on foreign shores.

The catastrophic reversal of the Achaeans’ fortune not only adds drama and suspense to the poem but alsomarks a development in the gods’ feuding and aids the progression of the overall plot. Although the godshave involved themselves extensively in the war already, Zeus’s entrance into the conflict brings greatchanges. Whereas he earlier frowns upon the infighting of the other gods but remains aloof himself, he nowforbids his fellow Olympians from interfering and plunges headlong into the struggle. The decline of theAchaeans marks not only a change in the gods’ behavior but also a more important change in the poem’shuman dynamics: the Achaeans’ eventual collapse motivates their appeal to Achilles in Book 9, which servesto bring the epic’s crucial figure to the center of the action. Zeus’s statement to Hera that only Achilles can savethe Achaeans foreshadows the text’s impending focus on the prideful hero. Until now, the reader has wit-nessed the consequences of Achilles’ rage; Book 8 sets the scene for an explosion of his rage onto the battle-field.

Books 7 and 8 give the reader a glimpse of some of the tenets of Greek ritual and belief, which, since Greekculture dominated the ancient Mediterranean world, the Trojan warriors uphold as well. The encounterbetween Hector and Ajax in Book 7, which ends with them exchanging arms and thereby sealing an unset-tled conflict with a pact of friendship, demonstrates the value placed on respect and individual dignity. We seethat Greek culture places great significance on both enmity and friendship—on both the taking of lives andthe giving of gifts—and that each has its proper place. The characters and the text itself seem to see the properbalancing of these opposites as a manifestation of an individual’s worthiness.

Another aspect of the ancient Greek value system emerges in the agreement both sides make to pause theirfighting to bury their respective dead. To the Greeks, piety demanded giving the dead, especially those whohad died so gloriously, a proper burial, though proper burial could mean a number of things: here the mourn-ers burn the corpses on a pyre; elsewhere they actually bury them. According to ancient Greek belief, onlysouls whose bodies had been properly disposed of could enter the underworld. To leave a soul unburied, or,worse, to leave it as carrion for wild animals, indicated not only disrespect for the dead individual but, per-haps even worse, disregard for established religious traditions.

Books 9–10

Summary: Book 9If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.


With the Trojans poised to drive the Achaeans back to their ships, the Achaean troops sit brokenhearted intheir camp. Standing before them, Agamemnon weeps and declares the war a failure. He proposes returningto Greece in disgrace. Diomedes rises and insists that he will stay and fight even if everyone else leaves. Hebuoys the soldiers by reminding them that Troy is fated to fall. Nestor urges perseverance as well, and sug-gests reconciliation with Achilles. Seeing the wisdom of this idea, Agamemnon decides to offer Achilles agreat stockpile of gifts on the condition that he return to the Achaean lines. The king selects some of theAchaeans’ best men, including Odysseus, Great Ajax, and Phoenix, to communicate the proposal to Achilles.

The embassy finds Achilles playing the lyre in his tent with his dear friend Patroclus. Odysseus presentsAgamemnon’s offer, but Achilles rejects it directly. He announces that he intends to return to his homeland ofPhthia, where he can live a long, prosaic life instead of the short, glorious one that he is fated to live if he stays.Achilles offers to take Phoenix, who helped rear him in Phthia, with him, but Phoenix launches into his ownlengthy, emotional plea for Achilles to stay. He uses the ancient story of Meleager, another warrior who, in anepisode of rage, refused to fight, to illustrate the importance of responding to the pleas of helpless friends. But



Achilles stands firm, still feeling the sting of Agamemnon’s insult. The embassy returns unsuccessful, and thearmy again sinks into despair.

Summary: Book 10The Greek commanders sleep well that night, with the exception of Agamemnon and Menelaus. Eventually,they rise and wake the others. They convene on open ground, on the Trojan side of their fortifications, to plantheir next move. Nestor suggests sending a spy to infiltrate the Trojan ranks, and Diomedes quickly volun-teers for the role. He asks for support, and Odysseus steps forward. The two men arm themselves and set offfor the Trojan camp. A heron sent by Athena calls out on their right-hand side, and they pray to Athena forprotection.

Meanwhile, the Trojans devise their own acts of reconnaissance. Hector wants to know if the Achaeansplan an escape. He selects Dolon, an unattractive but lightning-quick man, to serve as his scout, and promisesto reward him with Achilles’ chariot and horses once the Achaeans fall. Dolon sets out and soon encountersDiomedes and Odysseus. The two men interrogate Dolon, and he, hoping to save his life, tells them the posi-tions of the Trojans and all of their allies. He reveals to them that the Thracians, newly arrived, are especiallyvulnerable to attack. Diomedes then kills Dolon and strips him of his armor.

The two Achaean spies proceed to the Thracian camp, where they kill twelve soldiers and their king,Rhesus. They also steal Rhesus’s chariot and horses. Athena warns them that some angry god may wake theother soldiers; Diomedes and Odysseus thus ride Rhesus’s chariot back to the Achaean camp. Nestor and theother Greeks, worried that their comrades had been killed, greet them warmly.

Analysis: Books 9–10Although the episodes in Books 9 and 10 take place during the same night, providing a break from the fight-ing, little continuity exists between them. The mission to Achilles’ tent occurs early in the evening, while themission across the Trojan line occurs quite late—during the third watch, according to Odysseus, or around 3a.m. The only seeming connection between the two books is the Greeks’ desperateness, accentuated by Achil-les’ obstinacy, which troubles the commanders’ sleep and makes them so ready to meet. Despite this lack ofcontinuity, some symmetry nevertheless exists between the two halves of the night. In each case, a meeting ofthe Achaean command yields a proposal by Nestor to send an expeditionary force to provide the Achaeanswith fresh information. Odysseus goes on both expeditions. The mission to Achilles’ tent ends in failure,while the mission toward Troy brings success.

Whereas Achilles stews with rage, unwilling to consider the possibility that he might be overreacting toAgamemnon’s insulting actions, Agamemnon displays a levelheaded approach to the Achaean dilemma inheeding Nestor’s recommendation to reconcile himself with Achilles. “Mad, blind I was! / Not even I denyit,” he exclaims, acknowledging his fault in the rift (9.138–139). Yet, despite his seeming eagerness to repairhis friendship with Achilles, Agamemnon never issues anything resembling an apology. Though he admits tohaving been “lost in my own inhuman rage,” he seeks to buy back Achilles’ loyalty rather than work with himto achieve some mutual understanding of their relationship (9.143). Achilles isn’t really seeking an apology,nor does he want simple recompense in the form of wondrous gifts. He wants restitution for the outrage thathe has suffered: restoration of the honor and glory for which he has worked so hard and given so much.

While Agamemnon’s bountiful offer of sumptuous gifts to Achilles may seem a superficial gesture, it isimportant to remember that the ancients conceived of material possessions, whether won in battle or awardedby kings, as indicators of personal honor. Nevertheless, though Agamemnon is generous in his offerings,which he believes will “honor [Achilles] like a god,” he still essentially calls for Achilles to accept that his sta-tus is lower than Agamemnon’s (9.185). “Let him bow down to me! I am the greater king,” he cries out, illus-trating that Agamemnon, though perhaps more pragmatic, is just as self-centered as Achilles (9.192).

The embassy to Achilles constitutes one of the most touching scenes in The Iliad. Homer achieves his effectlargely through an exchange of narratives, which illuminate Achilles’ upbringing and hint at his ultimate fatebeyond the scope of the epic. Ostensibly, each side presents these stories to persuade the other side, but Homeruses them to humanize Achilles, to give us a glimpse of his past and future. Although Achilles’ pride and ragedefine the thematic concerns of the epic, they also result in Achilles’ absence from most of the action of thepoem. Accordingly, Homer has little opportunity to delineate the hero’s character. The embassy scene reveals



the pressures that Achilles faced in Phthia and highlights the dilemma that he faces now, thus illuminatinghis inner struggles and thereby making him a richer character.

Books 11–12

Summary: Book 11The next morning, Zeus rains blood upon the Achaean lines, filling them with panic; they suffer a massacreduring the first part of the day. But, by afternoon, they have begun to make progress. Agamemnon, splen-didly armed, cuts down man after man and beats the Trojans back to the city’s gates. Zeus sends Iris to tellHector that he must wait until Agamemnon is wounded and then begin his attack. Agamemnon soonreceives his wound at the hands of Coon, Antenor’s son, just after killing Coon’s brother. The injuredAgamemnon continues fighting and kills Coon, but his pain eventually forces him from the field.

Hector recognizes his cue and charges the Achaean line, driving it back. The Achaeans panic and standpoised to retreat, but the words of Odysseus and Diomedes imbue them with fresh courage. Diomedes thenhurls a spear that hits Hector’s helmet. This brush with death stuns Hector and forces him to retreat. Parisanswers the Achaeans’ act by wounding Diomedes with an arrow, thus sidelining the great warrior for therest of the epic. Trojans now encircle Odysseus, left to fight alone. He beats them all off, but not before a mannamed Socus gives him a wound through the ribs. Great Ajax carries Odysseus back to camp before the Tro-jans can harm him further.

Hector resumes his assault on another part of the Achaean line. The Greeks initially hold him off, but theypanic when the healer Machaon receives wounds at Paris’s hands. Hector and his men force Ajax to retreat asNestor conveys Machaon back to his tent. Meanwhile, behind the lines, Achilles sees the injured Machaon flyby in a chariot and sends his companion Patroclus to inquire into Machaon’s status. Nestor tells Patroclusabout all of the wounds that the Trojans have inflicted upon the Achaean commanders. He begs Patroclus topersuade Achilles to rejoin the battle—or at least enter the battle himself disguised in Achilles’ armor. Thisruse would at least give the Achaeans the benefit of Achilles’ terrifying aura. Patroclus agrees to appeal toAchilles and dresses the wound of a man named Eurypylus, who has been injured fighting alongside Ajax.

Summary: Book 12We learn that the Achaean fortifications are doomed to be destroyed by the gods when Troy falls. They con-tinue to hold for now, however, and the trench dug in front of them blocks the Trojan chariots. Undaunted,Hector, acting on the advice of the young commander Polydamas, orders his men to disembark from theirchariots and storm the ramparts. Just as the Trojans prepare to cross the trenches, an eagle flies to the left-hand side of the Trojan line and drops a serpent in the soldiers’ midst. Polydamas interprets this event as asign that their charge will fail, but Hector refuses to retreat.

The Trojans Glaucus and Sarpedon now charge the ramparts, and Menestheus, aided by Great Ajax andTeucer, struggles to hold them back. Sarpedon makes the first breach, and Hector follows by shattering one ofthe gates with a boulder. The Trojans pour through the fortifications as the Achaeans, terrified, shrink backagainst the ships.

Analysis: Books 11–12Two instances of divine intervention contribute to an extreme sense of suspense in these scenes. First, Zeusfirmly manipulates the battle, from showering the Achaeans with blood to enabling Hector to become thefirst Trojan to cross the Achaean fortifications. The Achaeans recognize his presence and realize that in fight-ing the Trojans they pit themselves against the king of the gods. Diomedes even interprets Zeus’s acts offavoritism to mean that Zeus has singled out the Trojans for ultimate victory. At the same time, however, theepic frequently reminds us of a second case of divine plotting: according to soothsayers, Troy is fated to fall.Homer builds dramatic tension by juxtaposing this prophecy with vivid descriptions of the Achaeans’ suffer-ings and setbacks. He constantly tempts us with the expectation of Trojan defeat while dashing this prospect



with endless examples of the Trojans’ success under Zeus’s partiality. Ultimately, we feel unable to trust eitherset of signs.

The frequent reappearance of Zeus also reminds the reader indirectly of Achilles, thus keeping our focuson The Iliad’s central conflict. Zeus first enters the war in response to Thetis’s prayers and now inflicts thesame sort of damage upon the Achaeans that we are led to believe Achilles might easily inflict upon the Tro-jans if his rage were to abate. Zeus’s overpowering of the Achaeans makes Achilles’ absence all the morenoticeable. Perhaps Homer worries that his audience, like the Achaeans, will miss Achilles—he seems to usethe wounding of Machaon, whom Nestor whisks past Achilles’ tent toward medical aid, as an opportunity tomake Achilles and, perhaps more important, Patroclus appear. The encounter between Nestor and Patroclusdoes more than present another glimpse of life behind the lines with Achilles and Patroclus; it also sheds somelight on the difference in these two men’s attitudes. As the text gives information on the background of Patro-clus, we begin to wonder whether Patroclus shares Achilles’ rage and whether he may wish to rejoin the fightdespite his loyalty to his friend.

The scene between Patroclus and Nestor also contains an instance of foreshadowing, hinting at what hap-pens when Patroclus does finally rejoin the battle. Homer writes that Patroclus’s “doom [is] sealed” as soon asAchilles calls for him to instruct him to speak with Nestor (11.714). It is Nestor who gives Patroclus the ideaof returning to battle dressed in Achilles’ armor, by means of which tactic Patroclus meets his death. The ref-erence to Patroclus’s doom not only foreshadows Patroclus’s end but also points toward the event that finallymotivates Achilles himself to return to battle.

Books 13–14

Summary: Book 13Zeus, happy with the war’s progress, takes his leave of the battlefield. Poseidon, eager to help the Achaeansand realizing that Zeus has gone, visits Little Ajax and Great Ajax in the form of Calchas and gives them con-fidence to resist the Trojan assault. He also rouses the rest of the Achaeans, who have withdrawn in tears tothe sides of the ships. Their spirits restored, the Achaeans again stand up to the Trojans, and the two Aeantes(the plural of Ajax) prove successful in driving Hector back. When Hector throws his lance at Teucer, Teucerdodges out of the way, and the weapon pierces and kills Poseidon’s grandson Amphimachus. As an act of ven-geance, Poseidon imbues Idomeneus with a raging power. Idomeneus then joins Meriones in leading a chargeagainst the Trojans at the Achaeans’ left wing. Idomeneus cuts down a number of Trojan soldiers but hopesmost of all to kill the warrior Deiphobus. Finding him on the battlefield, he taunts the Trojan, who summonsAeneas and other comrades to his assistance. In the long skirmish that ensues, Deiphobus is wounded, andMenelaus cuts down several Trojans.

Meanwhile, on the right, Hector continues his assault, but the Trojans who accompany him, having beenmercilessly battered by the two Aeantes, have lost their vigor. Some have returned to the Trojan side of thefortifications, while those who remain fight from scattered positions. Polydamas persuades Hector to regrouphis forces. Hector fetches Paris and tries to gather his comrades from the left end of the line—only to findthem all wounded or dead. Great Ajax insults Hector, and an eagle appears on Ajax’s right, a favorable omenfor the Achaeans.

Summary: Book 14Nestor leaves the wounded Machaon in his tent and goes to meet the other wounded Achaean commandersout by the ships. The men scan the battlefield and realize the terrible extent of their losses. Agamemnon pro-poses giving up and setting sail for home. Odysseus wheels on him and declares this notion cowardly and dis-graceful. Diomedes urges them all to the line to rally their troops. As they set out, Poseidon encouragesAgamemnon and gives added strength to the Achaean army.

Hera spots Zeus on Mount Ida, overlooking Troy, and devises a plan to distract him so that she may helpthe Achaeans behind his back. She visits Aphrodite and tricks her into giving her an enchanted breastbandinto which the powers of Love and Longing are woven, forceful enough to make the sanest man go mad. Shethen visits the embodiment of Sleep, and by promising him one of her daughters in marriage, persuades him



to lull Zeus to sleep. Sleep follows her to the peak of Mount Ida; disguised as a bird, he hides in a tree. Zeussees Hera, and the enchanted band seizes him with passion. He makes love to Hera and, as planned, soon fallsasleep. Hera then calls to Poseidon, telling him that he now has free rein to steer the Achaeans to victory.Poseidon regroups them, and they charge the Trojans. In the ensuing scuffle, Great Ajax knocks Hector tothe ground with a boulder, and the Trojans must carry the hero back to Troy. With Hector gone, the Achae-ans soon trounce their enemies, and Trojans die in great numbers as the army flees back to the city.

Analysis: Books 13–14The scene between Hera and Zeus in Book 14 does little to advance the plot of the poem, as Zeus has alreadydeparted the scene of battle and ceased to support the Trojans. However, the scene does provide some comicrelief. Once again, it is striking how issues of life and death in the mortal world are so often determined bypetty feuds in the godly realms. Here, the decisive turn in the battle results from Zeus’s libido and Aphrodite’sgullibility, as well as Hera’s indignant mischievousness. Time after time, these divinities prove that they arefar from always rational and levelheaded, that they are constrained by many of the same emotions and needsas humans. Interestingly, Homer never passes judgment on or questions the gods’ temperaments. Instead, heaccepts their sensitivities as fundamental to their existence.

Although the Greeks now rise again to power, the troops rally under a temporarily reduced set of leaders.With the exception of the two Aeantes and Menelaus, few of the most familiar Achaean warriors fight inBooks 13 and 14. Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diomedes have all been injured, and Nestor now tends to thewounded healer Machaon; Menelaus appears once, but only briefly. This new focus on Greece’s second stringaffects the narrative in a number of interesting ways. First, it spotlights the Trojan commanders; Hector,Paris, and Aeneas all play significant roles in these two books. Hector’s leadership abilities, for instance, cometo the foreground as he must decide, with help from Polydamas, first how to divide his army along theAchaean line and second whether to retreat and regroup his forces. Similarly, by keeping less senior com-manders in the thick of the fight on the Achaean side, Homer is able to focus on the leadership and tacticalskills of the main Achaean characters.

This focus corresponds to the more general attention paid in Books 13 and 14 to the tactical rather thanphysical aspects of war. The fighting described in these books entails less chaos and more controlled move-ment between groups of men. Polydamas and Hector discuss which part of the line needs reinforcement, andPoseidon urges the Achaeans to redistribute their arms more efficiently between stronger and weaker sol-diers. Even Hera’s collaboration with Poseidon and her deception of Zeus and Aphrodite contrast with thebrute force that Zeus uses to put the Trojans ahead in Books 8 through 12.

Books 15–16

Summary: Book 15Zeus wakes and sees the havoc that Hera and Poseidon have wreaked while he dozed in his enchanted sleep.Hera tries to blame Poseidon, but Zeus comforts her by making clear that he has no personal interest in a Tro-jan victory over the Achaeans. He tells her that he will again come to their aid, but that Troy is still fated to falland that Hector will die after he kills Patroclus. He then asks Hera to summon Iris and Apollo. Iris goes toorder Poseidon to leave the battlefield, which Poseidon reluctantly agrees to do, while Apollo seeks out Hec-tor and fills him and his comrades with fresh strength. Hector leads a charge against the Achaeans, and whiletheir leaders initially hold their ground, they retreat in terror when Apollo himself enters the battle. Apollocovers over the trench in front of the Greek fortifications, allowing the Trojans to beat down the rampartsonce again.

The armies fight all the way to the ships and very nearly into the Greek camp. At the base of the ships, furi-ous hand-to-hand fighting breaks out. Great Ajax and Hector again tangle. The archer Teucer fells severalTrojans, but Zeus snaps his bowstring when he takes aim at Hector. Ajax encourages his troops from thedecks of the ships, but Hector rallies the Trojans, and inch by inch the Trojans advance until Hector is closeenough to touch a ship.



Summary: Book 16Meanwhile, Patroclus goes to Achilles’ tent and begs to be allowed to wear Achilles’ armor if Achilles stillrefuses to rejoin the battle himself. Achilles declines to fight but agrees to the exchange of armor, with theunderstanding that Patroclus will fight only long enough to save the ships. As Patroclus arms himself, the firstship goes up in flames. Achilles sends his Myrmidon soldiers, who have not been fighting during their com-mander’s absence, out to accompany Patroclus. He then prays to Zeus that Patroclus may return with bothhimself and the ships unharmed. The poet reveals, however, that Zeus will grant only one of these prayers.

With the appearance of Patroclus in Achilles’ armor the battle quickly turns, and the Trojans retreat fromthe Achaean ships. At first, the line holds together, but when Hector retreats, the rest of the Trojans becometrapped in the trenches. Patroclus now slaughters every Trojan he encounters. Zeus considers saving his sonSarpedon, but Hera persuades him that the other gods would either look down upon him for it or try to savetheir own mortal offspring in turn. Zeus resigns himself to Sarpedon’s mortality. Patroclus soon spears Sarpe-don, and both sides fight over his armor. Hector returns briefly to the front in an attempt to retrieve thearmor.

Zeus decides to kill Patroclus for slaying Sarpedon, but first he lets him rout the Trojans. Zeus then imbuesHector with a temporary cowardice, and Hector leads the retreat. Patroclus, disobeying Achilles, pursues theTrojans all the way to the gates of Troy. Homer explains that the city might have fallen at this moment hadApollo not intervened and driven Patroclus back from the gates. Apollo persuades Hector to charge Patro-clus, but Patroclus kills Cebriones, the driver of Hector’s chariot. Trojans and Achaeans fight for Cebriones’armor. Amid the chaos, Apollo sneaks up behind Patroclus and wounds him, and Hector easily finishes himoff. Hector taunts the fallen man, but with his dying words Patroclus foretells Hector’s own death.

Analysis: Books 15–16Book 15 marks the beginning of the end for Hector and the Trojans, who have reached the height of theirpower and now face a downhill slope. From this vantage point, the end is in sight, and, correspondingly, Zeusnow outlines the rest of The Iliad and beyond, predicting even the eventual fall of Troy, which occurs after theend of the poem. Zeus’s speech makes it clear to the reader that a predestined conclusion awaits the Achaeansand Trojans; he is thus able to summarize the story even before the events occur.

This sense of predestination points to an important difference between ancient and modern fiction. Muchof modern fiction creates a sense of dramatic tension by keeping the reader wondering how a story will end.Often a story’s ending depends upon the individual characters and the choices that they make according totheir respective personalities. In contrast, ancient narratives often base themselves on mythological tradition,and ancient audiences would have listened to a given story already aware of its outcome. Tension in this sce-nario arises not from the question of how a character’s mindset will affect the story’s events but rather fromthe question of how the story’s events will affect a character’s mindset. For example, the poem creates a senseof drama and poignancy in its portrayal of Hector, who continues to fight valiantly for Troy even though heknows in his heart—as he tells Andromache in Book 6—that he is doomed to die and Troy doomed to fall.Similarly, Achilles eventually rejoins the battle despite his knowledge that the glory of fighting will cost himhis life. The drama comes not from waiting to see how the story ends but from waiting to see how the charac-ters respond to an end already foreseen.

Some of the details of The Iliad’s plot do depend on individual characters’ choices, however. Achilles facesthe dilemma of whether to enter the battle and save his comrades or stew in his angry self-pity and let themsuffer. These inner struggles of an individual character create not only a sense of drama but often a sense ofirony as well. In Book 1, Achilles asks Zeus, via Thetis, to punish the Achaeans for Agamemnon’s insolence indemanding the maiden Briseis. Now, as Zeus continues to oblige, helping the Trojans, Achilles loses hisbeloved comrade Patroclus. In another twist of irony, the death of Patroclus later motivates Achilles to rejointhe Achaean army and lead it against Troy, the very cause that he had forsworn before the beginning of TheIliad.

Some commentators detect a change in the characterization of Hector in this part of the epic. Earlier theundisputed champion of the Trojan army who criticizes Paris for retreating, Hector is twice shown fleeingbattle after Patroclus’s entrance. The Trojan Glaucus shames him into returning the first time, and Hector’suncle shames him into returning the second time (though Homer does point out that Zeus has made Hector



cowardly). Additionally, Hector’s prediction that he will kill Achilles is empty boasting. Indeed, he canhardly even lay claim to having killed Patroclus, as both Apollo and another Trojan wound Patroclus beforeHector can lay a hand on him.

Books 17–18

Summary: Book 17There is nothing alive more agonized than manof all that breathe and crawl across the earth.


A fight breaks out over Patroclus’s body. Euphorbus, the Trojan who first speared him, tries to strip him ofAchilles’ armor but is killed by Menelaus. Hector, spurred on by Apollo, sees Euphorbus’s fall and comes tohelp. Menelaus enlists the help of Great Ajax, who forces Hector to back down and prevents the body frombeing removed or desecrated. He arrives too late to save the armor, however, which Hector dons himself.Glaucus rebukes Hector for leaving Patroclus’s body behind and suggests that they might have traded it forSarpedon’s. Hector reenters the fray, promising to give half of the war’s spoils to any Trojan who drags Patro-clus’s corpse away.

Aware of Hector’s impending doom and perhaps pitying it, Zeus temporarily gives Hector great power.Ajax and Menelaus summon more Achaeans to help them, and they soon force the Trojans, including mightyHector, to run for the city’s walls. Aeneas, invigorated by Apollo, rallies the fleeing men to return to the fight,but after much effort they remain unable to take the corpse. Achilles’ charioteer, Automedon, becomesinvolved in the fighting as Zeus imbues his team with fresh strength. Hector tries to kill Automedon so thathe can steal the chariot, but Automedon dodges Hector’s spear and brings a Trojan down in the process. Hestrips the Trojan of his armor, claiming that in doing so he eases the grief of Patroclus’s spirit, though thispresent victim could hardly compare to the great Patroclus.

Athena, disguised as Phoenix, gives fresh strength to Menelaus, while Apollo, himself disguised as a Tro-jan, lends encouragement to Hector. Menelaus sends Antilochus for help from Achilles, who still doesn’tknow of Patroclus’s death. Zeus begins moving the battle in the Trojans’ favor but relents long enough forMenelaus and Meriones to carry away Patroclus’s body.

Summary: Book 18When Antilochus brings word to Achilles of Patroclus’s death, Achilles loses control of himself. He weepsand beats the ground with his fists and covers his face with dirt. He utters a “terrible, wrenching cry” so pro-found that Thetis hears him and comes with her water-nymph sisters from the ocean to learn what troublesher son (18.39). Achilles tells her of the tragedy and insists that he shall avenge himself on Hector, despite hisknowledge that, should he choose to live the life of a warrior, he is fated to die young. Thetis responds thatsince Hector now wears Achilles’ armor, she will have the divine metalsmith Hephaestus make him a newset, if Achilles will delay exacting his revenge for one day.

Thetis departs, and Iris, sent by Hera, comes to tell Achilles that he must go outside and make an appear-ance on the battlefield. This appearance alone will scare the Trojans into abandoning the fight for Patroclus’sbody. Achilles leaves his tent, accompanied by Athena, and lets loose an enormous cry that does indeed sendthe Trojans fleeing.

That night, each army holds an assembly to plan its next move. In the Trojan camp, Polydamas urges hiscomrades to retreat to the city now that Achilles has decided to return to battle. Hector dismisses the idea ascowardly and insists on repeating the previous day’s assault. His foolhardy plan wins the support of the Tro-jans, for Athena has robbed them of their wits. Meanwhile, in the Achaean camp, the men begin their mourn-ing for Patroclus. Achilles has men clean Patroclus’s wounds to prepare him for burial, though he vows not tobury him until he has slain Hector. Thetis goes to Hephaestus’s mansion and begs him to make Achilles a newset of armor. Hephaestus forges a breastplate, a helmet, and an extraordinary shield embossed with theimages of constellations, pastures, dancing children, and cities of men.



Analysis: Books 17–18In Book 18, night falls for the first time since Book 10; this sunless interlude plays a key role in the pacing,pitch, and drama of the poem, providing a lull in which both the characters and the reader can prepare for theintensity to come. This break from battle also serves to emphasize the significance of Achilles’ desire to exactrevenge upon Hector; the actions that he soon takes mark his first entry into battle and, simultaneously, thefirst lessening of his self-pity and pride. By having night fall upon the scene, Homer sets off the imminent epi-sode of Achilles’ attempt at revenge from the preceding slaughter. Indeed, Achilles’ entry into battle consti-tutes a metaphoric new dawn for the Achaeans.

The two assemblies held that night contrast sharply with each other, creating a sense of great irony. TheAchaeans, still pinned behind their fortifications, mourn a dead comrade and dwell on their woes; yet thenext day brings their fatal blow to the Trojan army. Buoyed by the day’s success, the Trojans plan a secondassault on the Achaean camp, though it is they, not the Achaeans, who will enter into mourning within thenext twenty-four hours. The doomed plan’s popularity among the Trojans is even more ironic given theavailability of Polydamas’s wise alternative to retreat into the city. Homer frequently uses the sensible Poly-damas as a foil (a character whose emotions or attitudes contrast with and thereby accentuate those of anothercharacter) for the headstrong Hector. This technique proves quite effective in this scene. Hector’s blindnessemerges not only in the formulation of his own foolhardy plan but also in his dismissal of a clearly superioroption.

Like the nighttime interlude, the forging of Achilles’ new armor helps set a tone of dramatic expectationin the poem. The magnificence of the armor’s beauty seems to bespeak its equally magnificent strength. Thelanguage describing the shield proves especially compelling and constitutes an example of the literary deviceekphrasis. Ekphrasis, a Greek word literally meaning “description,” refers to the description of visual art inpoetic terms. This device effectively allows Homer to filter an artistic subject through two layers of imagina-tive rendering. In the case of Achilles’ shield, the use of ekphrasis allows Homer to portray poetically not onlythe images appearing on the metal but also the effect of those images. For example, figures embossed on ashield cannot really move, of course, but Homer portrays them as dancing spiritedly. By doubling up twoartistic media—artistic etching and poetry—Homer endows the described images with an enhanced dyna-mism and aesthetic force. The ekphrasis here also serves to create a sense of contrast in the poem. The Iliad is ahighly compact narrative, compressing the turning points of a ten-year conflict into a few days of battle. Yetthe shield passage expands this setting to a timeless universe. At this moment, the poet stands back from thedetails of physical violence and personal vendettas to contemplate the beauty of the larger cosmos in whichthey take place.

Books 19–20

Summary: Book 19Thetis presents Achilles with the armor that Hephaestus has forged for him. She promises to look afterPatroclus’s body and keep it from rotting while Achilles goes to battle. Achilles walks along the shore, callinghis men to an assembly. At the meeting, Agamemnon and Achilles reconcile with each other, and Agamem-non gives Achilles the gifts that he promised him should Achilles ever return to battle. He also returns Briseis.

Achilles announces his intention to go to war at once. Odysseus persuades him to let the army eat first, butAchilles himself refuses to eat until he has slain Hector. All through breakfast, he sits mourning his dearfriend Patroclus and reminiscing. Even Briseis mourns, for Patroclus had treated her kindly when she wasfirst led away from her homeland. Zeus finds the scene emotionally moving and sends Athena down to fillAchilles’ stomach with nectar and ambrosia, keeping his hunger at bay. Achilles then dons his armor andmounts his chariot. As he does so, he chastises his horses, Roan Beauty and Charger, for leaving Patroclus onthe battlefield to die. Roan Beauty replies that it was not he but a god who let Patroclus die and that the sameis fated for Achilles. But Achilles needs no reminders of his fate; he knows his fate already, and knows that byentering battle for his friend he seals his destiny.



Summary: Book 20While the Achaeans and Trojans prepare for battle, Zeus summons the gods to Mount Olympus. He knowsthat if Achilles enters the battlefield unchecked, he will decimate the Trojans and maybe even bring the citydown before its fated time. Accordingly, he thus removes his previous injunction against divine interferencein the battle, and the gods stream down to earth. But the gods soon decide to watch the fighting rather thaninvolve themselves in it, and they take their seats on opposite hills overlooking the battlefield, interested to seehow their mortal teams will fare on their own.

Before he resigns himself to a passive role, however, Apollo encourages Aeneas to challenge Achilles. Thetwo heroes meet on the battlefield and exchange insults. Achilles is about to stab Aeneas fatally when Posei-don, in a burst of sympathy for the Trojan—and much to the chagrin of the other, pro-Greek gods—whisksAeneas away. Hector then approaches, but Apollo persuades him not to strike up a duel in front of the ranksbut rather to wait with the other soldiers until Achilles comes to him. Hector initially obeys, but when he seesAchilles so smoothly slaughtering the Trojans, among them one of Hector’s brothers, he again challengesAchilles. The fight goes poorly for Hector, and Apollo is forced to save him a second time.

Analysis: Books 19–20Although Achilles has reconciled with Agamemnon, his other actions in Books 19 and 20 indicate that he hasmade little progress as a character. He still demonstrates a tendency toward the thoughtless rage that hasbrought so many Achaeans to their deaths. He remains so intent on vengeance, for example, that he initiallyintends for the men to go into battle without food, which could prove suicidal in a form of warfare thatinvolves such great expenditures of physical energy. Similarly, on the battlefield Achilles demonstrates anobsessive concern with victory—to the exclusion of all other considerations. He cuts down the Trojan Troseven though Tros supplicates him and begs to be saved; it is apparent that Achilles has done little soul-search-ing. Although he reconciles himself with the Achaean forces, this gesture doesn’t alleviate his rage but ratherrefocuses it. He now lashes out at the Trojans, expressing his anger through action rather than throughpointed refusals to act. Burning with passion, Achilles rejects all appeals to cool-headed reflection; the textcompares him to an “inhuman fire” and, when he dons his shining armor, likens him to the sun (20.554). Thisimagery recalls his portrayal in Book 1 as “blazing Achilles” (1.342).

Indeed, Achilles’ internal dilemma as a character remains largely the same as in the beginning of the epic.Achilles has known throughout that his fate is either to live a short, glorious life at Troy or a long, obscure lifeback in Phthia. Now, as before, he must choose between them. Although he still feels torn between the twooptions, the shock of Patroclus’s death has shifted the balance in favor of remaining at Troy. There is little rea-son to believe that Achilles would have made up his mind without such a powerful catalyst for his decision.

These books of the poem concern themselves not only with the motivations and consequences of charac-ters’ actions but also with the forces at work outside direct human agency. In particular, Agamemnon speaksof the powers of Zeus and Fate, blaming them for his stubbornness in the quarrel with Achilles. He notes thatmany have held him responsible for the destruction that his insult to Achilles has caused, but he insists that hisearlier “savage madness” was driven into his heart by force (19.102). He also cites the force of “Ruin,” a trans-lation of the Greek word Ate, which refers to delusion and madness as well as to the disaster that such mentalstates can bring about (19.106). But Agamemnon and other characters throughout the epic describe Ruin notas a mortal phenomenon but as something external to human psychology; Ruin is described as a sentientbeing in and of itself. In Book 9, for example, Peleus describes Ruin as a woman, “strong and swift,” coursingover the earth wreaking havoc (9.614). Here, Agamemnon refers to Ruin as Zeus’s daughter, gliding over theearth with delicate feet, entangling men one by one, and even proving capable of entangling Zeus himself.

Another force repeatedly invoked here and throughout The Iliad is Fate. Despite the constant referencesto it, however, we never attain a clear sense of Fate’s properties. The first few lines of the poem suggest that thewill of Zeus overpowers all, yet at times Zeus himself seems beholden to Fate. In Book 15, for example, heagrees to cease his aid to the Trojans because he knows that Troy is fated to fall. At other times, Zeus and Fateappear to work cooperatively, as in Book 20, when Zeus rallies the gods to stop Achilles from sacking Troybefore its fated time. But one wonders to what extent this Fate is really fate at all, if Achilles can so easily pre-empt it. Other questions arise in Poseidon’s discussion of Fate, for he justifies saving Aeneas from Achilles on



the grounds that Aeneas is fated to live. This reasoning is paradoxical, for if Aeneas is fated to live, he shouldnot need rescuing.

Ultimately, The Iliad doesn’t present a clear hierarchy of the cosmic powers; we are left uncertain as towhether the gods control Fate or are forced to follow its dictates. The external forces of Fate, Ruin, and thegods remain as obscure as the inner workings of the human psyche. Thus, while the poet and his charactersmay attribute certain events to a personified Fate or Fury, such ascriptions do little to explain the events.Indeed, they achieve quite the opposite effect, indicating the mysterious nature of the universe and the humanactions within it. To invoke Ruin or the gods is to suggest not only that certain aspects of our world lie beyondhuman control but also that many phenomena lie beyond human understanding as well.

Books 21–22

Summary: Book 21Achilles routs the Trojans and splits their ranks, pursuing half of them into the river known to the gods asXanthus and to the mortals as Scamander. On the riverbank, Achilles mercilessly slaughters Lycaon, a son ofPriam. The Trojan Asteropaeus, given fresh strength by the god of the river, makes a valiant stand, but Achil-les kills him as well. The vengeful Achilles has no intention of sparing any Trojans now that they have killedPatroclus. He throws so many corpses into the river that its channels become clogged. The river god rises upand protests, and Achilles agrees to stop throwing people into the water but not to stop killing them. Theriver, sympathetic to the Trojans, calls for help from Apollo, but when Achilles hears the river’s plea, heattacks the river. The river gets the upper hand and drags Achilles all the way downstream to a floodplain. Hevery nearly kills Achilles, but the gods intervene. Hephaestus, sent by Hera, sets the plain on fire and boils theriver until he relents.

A great commotion now breaks out among the gods as they watch and argue over the human warfare.Athena defeats Ares and Aphrodite. Poseidon challenges Apollo, but Apollo refuses to fight over mere mor-tals. His sister Artemis taunts him and tries to encourage him to fight, but Hera overhears her and pounces onher.

Meanwhile, Priam sees the human carnage on the battlefield and opens the gates of Troy to his fleeingtroops. Achilles pursues them and very nearly takes the city, but the Trojan prince Agenor challenges him tosingle combat. Achilles’ fight with Agenor—and with Apollo disguised as Agenor after Agenor himself hasbeen whisked to safety—allows the Trojans enough time to scurry back to Troy.

Summary: Book 22Hector now stands as the only Trojan left outside Troy. Priam, overlooking the battlefield from the Trojanramparts, begs him to come inside, but Hector, having given the overconfident order for the Trojans to campoutside their gates the night before, now feels too ashamed to join them in their retreat. When Achilles finallyreturns from chasing Apollo (disguised as Agenor), Hector confronts him. At first, the mighty Trojan consid-ers trying to negotiate with Achilles, but he soon realizes the hopelessness of his cause and flees. He runsaround the city three times, with Achilles at his heels. Zeus considers saving Hector, but Athena persuadeshim that the mortal’s time has come. Zeus places Hector’s and Achilles’ respective fates on a golden scale, and,indeed, Hector’s sinks to the ground.

During Hector’s fourth circle around the city walls, Athena appears before him, disguised as his allyDeiphobus, and convinces him that together they can take Achilles. Hector stops running and turns to facehis opponent. He and Achilles exchange spear throws, but neither scores a hit. Hector turns to Deiphobus toask him for a lance; when he finds his friend gone, he realizes that the gods have betrayed him. In a desperatebid for glory, he charges Achilles. However, he still wears Achilles’ old armor—stolen from Patroclus’s deadbody—and Achilles knows the armor’s weak points intimately. With a perfectly timed thrust he puts hisspear through Hector’s throat. Near death, Hector pleads with Achilles to return his body to the Trojans forburial, but Achilles resolves to let the dogs and scavenger birds maul the Trojan hero.

The other Achaeans gather round and exultantly stab Hector’s corpse. Achilles ties Hector’s body to theback of his chariot and drags it through the dirt. Meanwhile, up above on the city’s walls, King Priam and



Queen Hecuba witness the devastation of their son’s body and wail with grief. Andromache hears them fromher chamber and runs outside. When she sees her husband’s corpse being dragged through the dirt, she toocollapses and weeps.

Analysis: Books 21–22In this section of the epic, the feuds of the gods continue to echo the battles of the mortals. As the human bat-tles become ever more grave, however, the divine conflicts in these episodes seem ever more superfluous. Intheir internal fighting, the gods do not affect or even try to affect the underlying issues of the human conflict.Two of them explicitly swear off fighting over the mortals, though one of these, Hera, ends up doing just that.It seems that the gods are not actually fighting over the mortals but rather expressing the animosities that themortal conflict has stirred in them. Although the struggle among the gods may remain unexplained withinthe plot of the epic, it adds variety to the poem’s rhythm and pacing, and elevates the conflict onto the epic,cosmos-consuming stage.

But these more lighthearted or colorful episodes soon give way to one of the poem’s most deadly seriousencounters, the duel between Hector and Achilles. Homer uses several devices, including prophecy andirony, to build a heavy sense of pathos. Priam’s speech comparing the glorious death of a hero with the humil-iating death of an old man in a fallen city comes across as particularly heartbreaking if we know, as Homer’saudience did, that Priam himself will soon meet the very death that he describes, amid the ruins of Troy.When Andromache bewails the miserable life that Astyanax will have to endure without a father, a sharpsense of irony enhances the tragic effect of her words: Astyanax will suffer this fatherless life only briefly, as hedies shortly after the fall of Troy.

This section of the poem reveals a particularly skillful control of plot. Events interweave with one anotherin elaborate patterns. The weighing of Hector’s and Achilles’ fates, for example, recalls but inverts the firstweighing of fates in Book 8, when the Trojan army’s fate rises above that of the Achaeans. Hector must fightto the death in these episodes in order to redeem the honor that he loses earlier; after he recklessly orders histroops to camp outside the city walls, the men have to flee, causing Hector great shame. Furthermore, Hec-tor’s earlier moment of glory, when he strips Patroclus of Achilles’ armor, speeds the moment of his undoing,for Achilles knows exactly where that armor is vulnerable. Such interconnections between events seem toindicate that the universe has a cyclical or balanced nature: one swing of the pendulum leads to another, andan individual’s actions come back to haunt him.

The final duel between Achilles and Hector becomes not only a duel of heroes but also of heroic values.While Achilles proves superior to Hector in terms of strength and endurance, he emerges as inferior in termsof integrity. His mistreatment of Hector’s body is a disgrace, compounded by the cruelty in which he allowsthe rank and file of his army to indulge. As we have seen, Achilles engages in such indignities quite routinelyand does so not out of any real principle but out of uncontrollable rage. Hector, on the other hand, entirelyredeems whatever flaws he displays in the preceding books. His refusal to return to the safety of Troy’s wallsafter witnessing the deaths brought about by his foolish orders to camp outside the city demonstrates hismature willingness to suffer the consequences of his actions. His rejection of a desperate attempt at negotia-tion in favor of the honorable course of battle reveals his ingrained sense of personal dignity. His attempt tosecure from Achilles a mutual guarantee that the winner treat the loser’s corpse with respect highlights hisdecency. Finally, his last stab at glory by charging Achilles even after he learns that the gods have abandonedhim and that his death is imminent makes his heroism and courage obvious. While Hector dies in this scene,the values that he represents—nobility, self-restraint, and respect—arguably survive him. Indeed, Achilleslater comes around to an appreciation of these very values after realizing the faults of his earlier brutality andself-centered rage.

Books 23–24

Summary: Book 23At the Achaean camp, Achilles and the Myrmidons continue their mourning for Patroclus. Achilles finallybegins to accept food, but he still refuses to wash until he has buried Patroclus. That night, his dead compan-



ion appears to him in a dream, begging Achilles to hold his funeral soon so that his soul can enter the land ofthe dead. The next day, after an elaborate ceremony in which he sacrifices the Achaeans’ twelve Trojan cap-tives, Achilles prays for assistance from the winds and lights Patroclus’s funeral pyre.

The day after, following the burial of Patroclus’s bones, Achilles holds a series of competitions in Patro-clus’s honor. Marvelous prizes are offered, and both the commanders and the soldiers compete. The eventsinclude boxing, wrestling, archery, and a chariot race, which Diomedes wins with some help from Athena.Afterward, Achilles considers stripping the prize from the second-place finisher, Antilochus, to give as conso-lation to the last-place finisher, whom Athena has robbed of victory so that Diomedes would win. But Antilo-chus becomes furious at the idea of having his prize taken from him. Menelaus then adds to the argument,declaring that Antilochus committed a foul during the race. After some heated words, the men reconcile withone another.

Summary: Book 24Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles— as old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age!


Achilles continues mourning Patroclus and abusing Hector’s body, dragging it around his dead companion’stomb. Apollo, meanwhile, protects Hector’s corpse from damage and rot and staves off dogs and scavengers.Finally, on the twelfth day after Hector’s death, Apollo persuades Zeus that Achilles must let Hector’s body beransomed. Zeus sends Thetis to bring the news to Achilles, while Iris goes to Priam to instruct him to initiatethe ransom. Hecuba fears that Achilles will kill her husband, but Zeus reassures her by sending an eagle as agood omen.

Priam sets out with his driver, Idaeus, and a chariot full of treasure. Zeus sends Hermes, disguised as abenevolent Myrmidon soldier, to guide Priam through the Achaean camp. When the chariot arrives at Achil-les’ tent, Hermes reveals himself and then leaves Priam alone with Achilles. Priam tearfully supplicatesAchilles, begging for Hector’s body. He asks Achilles to think of his own father, Peleus, and the love betweenthem. Achilles weeps for his father and for Patroclus. He accepts the ransom and agrees to give the corpseback.

That night, Priam sleeps in Achilles’ tent, but Hermes comes to him in the middle of the night and rouseshim, warning him that he must not sleep among the enemy. Priam and Idaeus wake, place Hector in theirchariot, and slip out of the camp unnoticed. All of the women in Troy, from Andromache to Helen, cry out ingrief when they first see Hector’s body. For nine days the Trojans prepare Hector’s funeral pyre—Achilles hasgiven them a reprieve from battle. The Trojans light Hector’s pyre on the tenth day.

Analysis: Books 23–24The games at Patroclus’s funeral serve primarily as a buffer between two climactic events—the death of Hec-tor and his burial. Accordingly, they serve little purpose in the story’s plot. Some of the competitions, however,especially the chariot race, provide some drama, but none of the events of Book 24 hinge on their outcome. Ina scene that strongly echoes the incident that provokes Achilles’ initial rage at Agamemnon, Achilles—ironi-cally—tries to strip the second-place charioteer, Antilochus, of his rightfully won prize. Just as Antilochusfinishes second to Diomedes, so does Achilles rank second to Agamemnon; Antilochus, as Achilles does ear-lier, refuses to suffer the injustice and humiliation of having his achievements go unappreciated. Unlike theconflict between Achilles and Agamemnon, however, this matter is settled peacefully and has no lastingresults for any of the characters. Ultimately, the games function for the reader much as they do for the charac-ters—as a diversion from grief.

The Iliad ends much as it began: just as Chryses does in Book 1, Priam now crosses enemy lines to suppli-cate the man who has his child. This time, however, the father’s prayers are immediately granted. Priam’sinvocation of Achilles’ own father, Peleus, forges a momentary bond between him and Achilles. Achillesknows that he is fated never to return to Phthia, meaning that one day Peleus will be the bereft father thatAchilles has made Priam, mourning a child snatched from his grasp in enemy territory. This realization that



his own father is doomed to suffer what Priam is now suffering finally melts Achilles’ rage, bringing a senseof closure to the poem.

The bond between Achilles and Priam proves entirely transitory, however. No alliances have shifted;Agamemnon would surely take Priam prisoner if he found him in the Achaean camp. Achilles and Priamremain enemies, as Hermes soon reminds Priam. Achilles’ first loyalty is still to Patroclus, as he needs toremind himself after giving up the body of Patroclus’s murderer. The fate of Troy is still sealed, a city destinedto fall violently at the hands of the Achaeans, as Andromache reminds us when she sees Hector’s body beingcarried into the city. Nonetheless, while Achilles and Priam remain enemies, their animosity has become anobler, more respectful one.

This change seems to stem from the development of Achilles’ character. Having begun the epic as a tem-peramental, prideful, selfish, and impulsive man, Achilles shows himself in Book 24 to possess a sense of sym-pathy for others. Throughout the poem, Homer charts Achilles’ inability to think beyond himself—hiswounded pride makes him stubbornly allow the other Achaeans to suffer defeat, and his rage at Patroclus’sdeath makes him utterly disrespect the noble Hector’s corpse. Now, however, Achilles not only respectsPriam’s plea by returning Hector’s body but also allows the Trojan people a reprieve from battle in order tohonor and grieve their hero thoroughly and properly.

That Achilles’ change of heart occasions the poem’s conclusion emphasizes the centrality of Achilles’ rageto the poem. Homer chooses to conclude The Iliad not with the death of Achilles or the fall of Troy but ratherwith the withering of Achilles’ mighty wrath. The lack of emphasis given to dramatic climax in favor of anexploration of human emotion complements the poem’s anticlimactic nature as a whole. Homer’s audiencewould have been very familiar with the plot’s outcome, and even a modern audience learns relatively early onhow things turn out; because the element of suspense is gone, it makes perfect sense for the poem to wrapitself up when its original conflict—Achilles’ rage at Agamemnon—has been suitably resolved.


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Important Quotations Explained

1. Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,feasts for the dogs and birds,and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

The first lines of an ancient epic poem typically offer a capsule summary of the subject the poem will treat,and the first lines of The Iliad conform to this pattern. Indeed, Homer announces his subject in the very firstword of the very first line: “Rage.” He then locates the rage within “Peleus’ son Achilles,” delineates its conse-quences (“cost the Achaeans countless losses . . .”), links it to higher forces and agendas (“the will of Zeus”),and notes its origin (when “the two first broke and clashed, / Agamemnon . . . and brilliant Achilles”). Inter-estingly, although these lines purport to focus on a human emotion, they interpret this emotion as unfoldingin accordance with the expression of Zeus’s will. Similarly, Homer conceives of the entire epic as the mediumthrough which a divine being—a Muse—speaks.

As evident in this passage, the poem emphatically does not undertake to deal with the Trojan War as awhole. The poet does not even mention Troy here, and he specifically asks the Muse to begin the story at thetime when Agamemnon and Achilles first “broke and clashed”—nine years into the ten-year conflict. Nordoes he mention the fall of Troy or the Greek victory, referring only to a vague “end” toward which Zeus’swill moves. This does not mean that the Trojan War does not play an important role in the poem. Homerclearly uses the war not just as a setting but as a wellspring for the value system he celebrates, and a source oftelling illustrations for his statements on life, death, and fate. Nonetheless, the poem remains fundamentallyfocused on the conflict within a single man, and this opening passage conveys this focus to the reader.

2. We everlasting gods . . . Ah what chilling blowswe suffer—thanks to our own conflicting wills— whenever we show these mortal men some kindness.

Ares voices this lament after being wounded by Diomedes in Book 5. His plaint concisely captures the Hom-eric relationship between gods and men and, perhaps, Homer’s attitude toward that relationship. Homericgods frequently intervene in the mortal world out of some kind of emotional attachment to the object of thatintervention. Here, Ares describes this emotion as simply a desire to do “kindness,” but kindness toward onemortal often translates into unkindness toward another—hence Ares’ wound at the hands of Diomedes.

Divine intervention in The Iliad causes conflicts not only in the mortal sphere but between the gods as well.Each god favors different men, and when these men are at war, divine wars often rage as well. Ares thus cor-rectly attributes the gods’ “chilling blows” to their “own conflicting wills.”

Ares’ whining does not make him unique among the gods. Homer’s immortals expect to govern accordingto their wills, which are in turn governed by self-interest. Correspondingly, they complain when they do notget their way. Ares’ melodramatic and self-pitying lament, which is greeted with scorn by Zeus a few lineslater, probably implies some criticism of the gods by Homer. Ares’ appearance here as a kind of spoiled childprovides just one example of Homer’s portrayal of the gods as temperamental, sulky, vengeful, and petty—aportrayal that may seek to describe and explain the inequities and absurdities in life on earth.


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3. Cattle and fat sheep can all be had for the raiding,tripods all for the trading, and tawny-headed stallions.But a man’s life breath cannot come back again— . . .

Mother tells me,the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet,that two fates bear me on to the day of death.If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.If I voyage back to the fatherland I love,my pride, my glory dies. . . .

With these words in Book 9, Achilles rejects the embassy of Achaean commanders come to win him back tothe war effort. His response here shows that Agamemnon’s effrontery—which he discusses earlier in hisspeech—does not constitute the sole reason for his refusal to fight. Achilles also fears the consequences instore for him if he remains in Troy. His mother, Thetis, has told him that fate has given him two options—either live a short but glorious life in Troy or return to Phthia and live on in old age but obscurity. As he con-fronts this choice, the promise of gifts and plunder—cattle, fat sheep, stallions—doesn’t interest him at all.Such material gifts can be traded back and forth, or even taken away, as his prize Briseis was. In contrast, thetruly precious things in the world are those that cannot be bought, sold, seized, or commodified in any way.These include glory and life itself.

The choice that Achilles must make in this scene is between glory and life; it is not merely a matter ofwhether to accept the gifts or to continue protesting Agamemnon’s arrogance. At this point in the epic, Achil-les has chosen life over glory, and he explains that he plans to return to Phthia. However, the allure of glorylater proves irresistible when he finds a compelling occasion for it—avenging the death of his beloved friendPatroclus.

4. There is nothing alive more agonized than manof all that breathe and crawl across the earth.

Zeus speaks these words to the horses of Achilles’ chariot, who weep over the death of Patroclus in Book 17.Grim as they are, the lines accurately reflect the Homeric view of the human condition. Throughout TheIliad, as well as The Odyssey, mortals often figure as little more than the playthings of the gods. Gods can whiskthem away from danger as easily as they can put them in the thick of it. It is thus appropriate that the abovelines are spoken by a god, and not by a mortal character or the mortal poet; the gods know the mortals’ agony,as they play the largest role in causing it.

While gods can presumably manipulate and torment other animals that “breathe and crawl across theearth,” humanity’s consciousness of the arbitrariness of their treatment at the hands of the gods, their aware-ness of the cruel choreography going on above, increases their agony above that of all other creatures. Forwhile the humans remain informed of the gods’ interventions, they remain powerless to contradict them.Moreover, humans must deal with a similarly fruitless knowledge of their fates. The Iliad’s two most impor-tant characters, Achilles and Hector, both know that they are doomed to die early deaths. Hector knows inaddition that his city is doomed to fall, his brothers and family to be extinguished, and his wife to be reducedto slavery. These men’s agony arises from the fact that they bear the burden of knowledge without being ableto use this knowledge to bring about change.

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5. Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles— as old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age!No doubt the countrymen round about him plague him now,with no one there to defend him, beat away disaster.No one—but at least he hears you’re still aliveand his old heart rejoices, hopes rising, day by day,to see his beloved son come sailing home from Troy.

With these words, spoken in the middle of Book 24, Priam implores Achilles to return Hector’s corpse forproper burial. He makes himself sympathetic in Achilles’ eyes by drawing a parallel between himself andAchilles’ father, Peleus. Priam imagines Peleus surrounded by enemies with no one to protect him—a predic-ament that immediately mirrors his own, as a supplicant standing in the middle of the enemy camp. More-over, the two fathers’ situations resemble each other on a broader scale as well. Hector was the bulwark forPriam’s Troy just as Achilles was the bulwark for his father’s kingdom back in Phthia, and with the two sonsgone, Priam’s enemies—the Achaeans—will now close in on him just as those of Peleus will. Priam claimsthat the parallel fails in only one respect: Peleus can at least hope that his son will come home one day.

But it is this one alleged hole in Priam’s comparison that truly summons Achilles’ pity and breaks down hisresistance, for, unknown to Priam, Peleus is also destined never to see his son again. Achilles knows, as Priamdoes not, that he is fated to die at Troy and never return home to Phthia. He realizes that one day Peleus willlearn that his son has died at the hands of enemies and that he will never see his body again, just as might hap-pen to Priam if Achilles doesn’t return Hector’s corpse to him. Priam’s comparison turns out to be more truethan he knows.

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Key Facts

Full title THE ILIAD

Author Homer

Type of work Poem

GenreEpic

Language Ancient Greek

Time and place written Unknown, but probably mainland Greece, around 750 b.c.

Date of first publication Unknown

Publisher Unknown

Narrator The poet, who declares himself to be the medium through which one or many of the Muses speak

Point of view The narrator speaks in the third person. An omniscient narrator (he has access to every character’s mind), he frequently gives insight into the thoughts and feelings of even minor characters, gods and mortals alike.

Tone Awe-inspired, ironic, lamenting, pitying

Tense Past

Setting (time) Bronze Age (around the twelfth or thirteenth century b.c.); THE ILIAD begins nine years after the start of the Trojan War

Setting (place) Troy (a city in what is now northwestern Turkey) and its immediate environs

Protagonist Achilles


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Major conflict Agamemnon’s demand for Achilles’ war prize, the maiden Briseis, wounds Achilles’ pride; Achilles’ consequent refusal to fight causes the Achaeans to suffer greatly in their battle against the Trojans.

Rising action Hector’s assault on the Achaean ships; the return of Patroclus to combat; the death of Patroclus

Climax Achilles’ return to combat turns the tide against the Trojans once and for all and ensures the fated fall of Troy to which the poet has alluded throughout the poem.

Falling action The retreat of the Trojan army; Achilles’ revenge on Hector; the Achaeans’ desecration of Hector’s corpse

Themes The glory of war; military values over family life; the impermanence of human life and its creations

Motifs Armor; burial; fire

Symbols The Achaean ships; the shield of Achilles

Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is prominent in THE ILIAD, as the poet constantly refers to events that have yet to occur and to fated outcomes. Patroclus’s return to battle foreshadows Achilles’ return to battle, for example, and Hector’s taunting of the dead Patroclus foreshadows the desecration of his own corpse by Achilles. Also, Achilles and Hector themselves make references to their own fates—about which they have been informed; technically, only Hector’s references foreshadow any event in the poem itself, however, as Achilles dies after the close of the epic.

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Study Questions

1. Nestor seems like a minor character in THE ILIAD, but he actually plays a significant role in the development of the epic’s plot. What are some of the ways in which the aged king propels the action of the story? What effect does he have on the epic as a whole?

In his role as storyteller and counselor to the Achaean forces, Nestor often provides motivation for The Iliad’splot. He convinces the Achaean army to build fortifications around its ships—fortifications that serve as alocus for much of the future confrontation between the two armies. He proposes the spy mission on whichOdysseus and Diomedes kill Dolon and a number of Thracian soldiers. Furthermore, it is Nestor who con-vinces Agamemnon to send an embassy to Achilles, begging him to return to battle. Although this missionultimately fails, it provides Homer with the occasion to develop the character of Achilles, giving an importantcontext to his decision to abandon the war effort. Finally, Nestor proposes to have Patroclus fight in Achilles’place wearing his armor. This scheme proves the turning point for the entire epic.

2. What is the role of women in THE ILIAD? Does the poem contain any strong female characters, or do the acts and deeds of males dominate the work?

The Iliad certainly contains strong female characters. Athena and Hera rank among the most powerful forcesin the book. Even the other male gods cannot stand up to them, and Ares, supposedly the god of war, mustcede to Athena’s superior might on two occasions. Moreover, Athena and Hera are more than just assertiveand forceful. They are cunning, quick-witted, and sharp-tongued. By using her womanly assets and a littletrickery, Hera incapacitates even Zeus, the king of gods and men.

In the mortal sphere, however, The Iliad has little to offer in the way of strong female figures. Very fewwomen enter the story at all, and the women who do appear usually fall into one of two categories: property,such as Chryseis and Briseis, or interlocutors for male characters, such as Helen and Andromache. Homeruses Helen to reveal the cowardly underside of Paris’s character and to spotlight the Achaean commanderswhen she describes them to Priam on the Trojan ramparts. Andromache helps to make Hector a sympatheticcharacter and provides the stimulus for his speech in Book 6 about the fate of Troy. Thus, the significance ofboth women lies not in themselves but in the ways they illuminate the men around them. The two may seemto be important characters because of the high status they enjoy relative to other women, but compared to TheIliad’s warriors they are little more than props.

3. What role does fate play in the emotional and psychological effect of THE ILIAD? Why does Homer make his characters aware of their impending dooms?

Homer’s original audience would already have been intimately familiar with the story The Iliad tells. Makinghis characters cognizant of their fates merely puts them on par with the epic’s audience. In deciding to makehis characters knowledgeable about their own futures, he loses the effect of dramatic irony, in which the audi-ence watches characters stumble toward ends that it alone knows in advance. But Homer doesn’t sacrificedrama; in fact, this technique renders the characters more compelling. They do not fall to ruin out of igno-rance, but instead become tragic figures who go knowingly to their doom because they have no real choice. Inthe case of Hector and Achilles, their willing submission to a fate they recognize but cannot evade rendersthem not only tragic but emphatically heroic.


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How to Write Literary Analysis

The Literary Essay: A Step-by-Step GuideWhen you read for pleasure, your only goal is enjoyment. You might find yourself reading to get caught up inan exciting story, to learn about an interesting time or place, or just to pass time. Maybe you’re looking forinspiration, guidance, or a reflection of your own life. There are as many different, valid ways of reading abook as there are books in the world.

When you read a work of literature in an English class, however, you’re being asked to read in a specialway: you’re being asked to perform literary analysis. To analyze something means to break it down intosmaller parts and then examine how those parts work, both individually and together. Literary analysisinvolves examining all the parts of a novel, play, short story, or poem—elements such as character, setting,tone, and imagery—and thinking about how the author uses those elements to create certain effects.

A literary essay isn’t a book review: you’re not being asked whether or not you liked a book or whetheryou’d recommend it to another reader. A literary essay also isn’t like the kind of book report you wrote whenyou were younger, where your teacher wanted you to summarize the book’s action. A high school- or college-level literary essay asks, “How does this piece of literature actually work?” “How does it do what it does?”and, “Why might the author have made the choices he or she did?”

The Seven StepsNo one is born knowing how to analyze literature; it’s a skill you learn and a process you can master. As yougain more practice with this kind of thinking and writing, you’ll be able to craft a method that works best foryou. But until then, here are seven basic steps to writing a well-constructed literary essay:

1. Ask questions2. Collect evidence3. Construct a thesis4. Develop and organize arguments5. Write the introduction6. Write the body paragraphs7. Write the conclusion

1. Ask QuestionsWhen you’re assigned a literary essay in class, your teacher will often provide you with a list of writingprompts. Lucky you! Now all you have to do is choose one. Do yourself a favor and pick a topic that interestsyou. You’ll have a much better (not to mention easier) time if you start off with something you enjoy thinkingabout. If you are asked to come up with a topic by yourself, though, you might start to feel a little panicked.Maybe you have too many ideas—or none at all. Don’t worry. Take a deep breath and start by asking yourselfthese questions:

• What struck you? Did a particular image, line, or scene linger in your mind for a long time? If it fascinated you, chances are you can draw on it to write a fascinating essay.

• What confused you? Maybe you were surprised to see a character act in a certain way, or maybe you didn’t understand why the book ended the way it did. Confusing moments in a work of literature are like a loose thread in a sweater: if you pull on it, you can unravel the entire thing. Ask yourself why the author chose to write about that character or scene the way he or she did and you might tap into some important insights about the work as a whole.


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• Did you notice any patterns? Is there a phrase that the main character uses constantly or an image that repeats throughout the book? If you can figure out how that pattern weaves through the work and what the significance of that pattern is, you’ve almost got your entire essay mapped out.

• Did you notice any contradictions or ironies? Great works of literature are complex; great literary essays recognize and explain those complexities. Maybe the title (Happy Days) totally disagrees with the book’s subject matter (hungry orphans dying in the woods). Maybe the main character acts one way around his family and a completely different way around his friends and associates. If you can find a way to explain a work’s contradictory elements, you’ve got the seeds of a great essay.

At this point, you don’t need to know exactly what you’re going to say about your topic; you just need a placeto begin your exploration. You can help direct your reading and brainstorming by formulating your topic as aquestion, which you’ll then try to answer in your essay. The best questions invite critical debates and discus-sions, not just a rehashing of the summary. Remember, you’re looking for something you can prove or arguebased on evidence you find in the text. Finally, remember to keep the scope of your question in mind: is this atopic you can adequately address within the word or page limit you’ve been given? Conversely, is this a topicbig enough to fill the required length?

Good Questions

“Are Romeo and Juliet’s parents responsible for the deaths of their children?”“Why do pigs keep showing up in LORD OF THE FLIES?”“Are Dr. Frankenstein and his monster alike? How?”

Bad Questions

“What happens to Scout in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD?”“What do the other characters in JULIUS CAESAR think about Caesar?”“How does Hester Prynne in THE SCARLET LETTER remind me of my sister?”

2. Collect EvidenceOnce you know what question you want to answer, it’s time to scour the book for things that will help youanswer the question. Don’t worry if you don’t know what you want to say yet—right now you’re just collect-ing ideas and material and letting it all percolate. Keep track of passages, symbols, images, or scenes that dealwith your topic. Eventually, you’ll start making connections between these examples and your thesis willemerge.

Here’s a brief summary of the various parts that compose each and every work of literature. These are theelements that you will analyze in your essay, and which you will offer as evidence to support your arguments.For more on the parts of literary works, see the Glossary of Literary Terms at the end of this section.

Elements of Story

These are the whats of the work—what happens, where it happens, and to whom it happens.

• Plot: All of the events and actions of the work.

• Character: The people who act and are acted upon in a literary work. The main character of a work is known as the protagonist.

• Conflict: The central tension in the work. In most cases, the protagonist wants something, while opposing forces (antagonists) hinder the protagonist’s progress.

• Setting: When and where the work takes place. Elements of setting include location, time period, time of day, weather, social atmosphere, and economic conditions.

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• Narrator: The person telling the story. The narrator may straightforwardly report what happens, convey the subjective opinions and perceptions of one or more characters, or provide commentary and opinion in his or her own voice.

• Themes: The main idea or message of the work—usually an abstract idea about people, society, or life in general. A work may have many themes, which may be in tension with one another.

Elements of Style

These are the hows—how the characters speak, how the story is constructed, and how language is usedthroughout the work.

• Structure and organization: How the parts of the work are assembled. Some novels are narrated in a linear, chronological fashion, while others skip around in time. Some plays follow a traditional three- or five-act structure, while others are a series of loosely connected scenes. Some authors deliberately leave gaps in their works, leaving readers to puzzle out the missing information. A work’s structure and organization can tell you a lot about the kind of message it wants to convey.

• Point of view: The perspective from which a story is told. In first-person point of view, the narrator involves him or herself in the story. (“I went to the store”; “We watched in horror as the bird slammed into the window.”) A first-person narrator is usually the protagonist of the work, but not always. In third-person point of view, the narrator does not participate in the story. A third-person narrator may closely follow a specific character, recounting that individual character’s thoughts or experiences, or it may be what we call an omniscient narrator. Omniscient narrators see and know all: they can witness any event in any time or place and are privy to the inner thoughts and feelings of all characters. Remember that the narrator and the author are not the same thing!

• Diction: Word choice. Whether a character uses dry, clinical language or flowery prose with lots of exclamation points can tell you a lot about his or her attitude and personality.

• Syntax: Word order and sentence construction. Syntax is a crucial part of establishing an author’s narrative voice. Ernest Hemingway, for example, is known for writing in very short, straightforward sentences, while James Joyce characteristically wrote in long, incredibly complicated lines.

• Tone: The mood or feeling of the text. Diction and syntax often contribute to the tone of a work. A novel written in short, clipped sentences that use small, simple words might feel brusque, cold, or matter-of-fact.

• Imagery: Language that appeals to the senses, representing things that can be seen, smelled, heard, tasted, or touched.

• Figurative language: Language that is not meant to be interpreted literally. The most common types of figurative language are metaphors and similes, which compare two unlike things in order to suggest a similarity between them—for example, “All the world’s a stage,” or “The moon is like a ball of green cheese.” (Metaphors say one thing is another thing; similes claim that one thing is like another thing.)

3. Construct a ThesisWhen you’ve examined all the evidence you’ve collected and know how you want to answer the question, it’stime to write your thesis statement. A thesis is a claim about a work of literature that needs to be supported byevidence and arguments. The thesis statement is the heart of the literary essay, and the bulk of your paper willbe spent trying to prove this claim. A good thesis will be:

• Arguable. “The Great Gatsby describes New York society in the 1920s” isn’t a thesis—it’s a fact.



• Provable through textual evidence. “Hamlet is a confusing but ultimately very well-written play” is a weak thesis because it offers the writer’s personal opinion about the book. Yes, it’s arguable, but it’s not a claim that can be proved or supported with examples taken from the play itself.

• Surprising. “Both George and Lenny change a great deal in Of Mice and Men” is a weak thesis because it’s obvious. A really strong thesis will argue for a reading of the play that is not immediately apparent.

• Specific. “Dr. Frankenstein’s monster tells us a lot about the human condition” is almost a really great thesis statement, but it’s still too vague. What does the writer mean by “a lot”? How does the monster tell us so much about the human condition?

Good Thesis Statements

Question:In Romeo and Juliet, which is more powerful in shaping the lovers’ story: fate or foolishness?Thesis:“Though Shakespeare defines Romeo and Juliet as ‘star-crossed lovers’ and images of stars and

planets appear throughout the play, a closer examination of that celestial imagery reveals that the stars aremerely witnesses to the characters’ foolish activities and not the causes themselves.”

Question: How does the bell jar function as a symbol in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar?Thesis:“A bell jar is a bell-shaped glass that has three basic uses: to hold a specimen for observation, to con-

tain gases, and to maintain a vacuum. The bell jar appears in each of these capacities in The Bell Jar, Plath’ssemi-autobiographical novel, and each appearances marks a different stage in Esther’s mental breakdown.”

Question:Would Piggy in The Lord of the Flies make a good island leader if he were given the chance?Thesis:“Though the intelligent, rational, and innovative Piggy has the mental characteristics of a good

leader, he ultimately lacks the social skills necessary to be an effective one. Golding emphasizes this point bygiving Piggy a foil in the charismatic Jack, whose magnetic personality allows him to capture and wieldpower effectively, if not always wisely.”

4. Develop and Organize ArgumentsThe reasons and examples that support your thesis will form the middle paragraphs of your essay. Since youcan’t really write your thesis statement until you know how you’ll structure your argument, you’ll probablyend up working on steps 3 and 4 at the same time.

There’s no single method of argumentation that will work in every context. One essay prompt might askyou to compare and contrast two characters, while another asks you to trace an image through a given workof literature. These questions require different kinds of answers and therefore different kinds of arguments.Below, we’ll discuss three common kinds of essay prompts and some strategies for constructing a solid, well-argued case.

Types of Literary Essays

• Compare and contrast

Compare and contrast the characters of Huck and Jim in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.

Chances are you’ve written this kind of essay before. In an academic literary context, you’ll organize yourarguments the same way you would in any other class. You can either go subject by subject or point by point. Inthe former, you’ll discuss one character first and then the second. In the latter, you’ll choose several traits (atti-tude toward life, social status, images and metaphors associated with the character) and devote a paragraph toeach. You may want to use a mix of these two approaches—for example, you may want to spend a paragrapha piece broadly sketching Huck’s and Jim’s personalities before transitioning into a paragraph or two thatdescribes a few key points of comparison. This can be a highly effective strategy if you want to make a coun-terintuitive argument—that, despite seeming to be totally different, the two objects being compared are actu-ally similar in a very important way (or vice versa). Remember that your essay should reveal something freshor unexpected about the text, so think beyond the obvious parallels and differences.



• Trace

Choose an image—for example, birds, knives, or eyes—and trace that image throughout MACBETH.

Sounds pretty easy, right? All you need to do is read the play, underline every appearance of a knife in Mac-beth, and then list them in your essay in the order they appear, right? Well, not exactly. Your teacher doesn’twant a simple catalog of examples. He or she wants to see you make connections between those examples—that’s the difference between summarizing and analyzing. In the Macbeth example above, think about thedifferent contexts in which knives appear in the play and to what effect. In Macbeth, there are real knives andimagined knives; knives that kill and knives that simply threaten. Categorize and classify your examples togive them some order. Finally, always keep the overall effect in mind. After you choose and analyze yourexamples, you should come to some greater understanding about the work, as well as your chosen image,symbol, or phrase’s role in developing the major themes and stylistic strategies of that work.

• Debate

Is the society depicted in 1984 good for its citizens?

In this kind of essay, you’re being asked to debate a moral, ethical, or aesthetic issue regarding the work. Youmight be asked to judge a character or group of characters (Is Caesar responsible for his own demise?) or thework itself (Is JANE EYRE a feminist novel?). For this kind of essay, there are two important points to keep inmind. First, don’t simply base your arguments on your personal feelings and reactions. Every literary essayexpects you to read and analyze the work, so search for evidence in the text. What do characters in 1984 haveto say about the government of Oceania? What images does Orwell use that might give you a hint about hisattitude toward the government? As in any debate, you also need to make sure that you define all the neces-sary terms before you begin to argue your case. What does it mean to be a “good” society? What makes a novel“feminist”? You should define your terms right up front, in the first paragraph after your introduction.

Second, remember that strong literary essays make contrary and surprising arguments. Try to think out-side the box. In the 1984 example above, it seems like the obvious answer would be no, the totalitarian societydepicted in Orwell’s novel is not good for its citizens. But can you think of any arguments for the oppositeside? Even if your final assertion is that the novel depicts a cruel, repressive, and therefore harmful society,acknowledging and responding to the counterargument will strengthen your overall case.

5. Write the IntroductionYour introduction sets up the entire essay. It’s where you present your topic and articulate the particular issuesand questions you’ll be addressing. It’s also where you, as the writer, introduce yourself to your readers. Apersuasive literary essay immediately establishes its writer as a knowledgeable, authoritative figure.

An introduction can vary in length depending on the overall length of the essay, but in a traditional five-paragraph essay it should be no longer than one paragraph. However long it is, your introduction needs to:

• Provide any necessary context. Your introduction should situate the reader and let him or her know what to expect. What book are you discussing? Which characters? What topic will you be addressing?

• Answer the “So what?” question. Why is this topic important, and why is your particular position on the topic noteworthy? Ideally, your introduction should pique the reader’s interest by suggesting how your argument is surprising or otherwise counterintuitive. Literary essays make unexpected connections and reveal less-than-obvious truths.

• Present your thesis. This usually happens at or very near the end of your introduction.

• Indicate the shape of the essay to come. Your reader should finish reading your introduction with a good sense of the scope of your essay as well as the path you’ll take toward proving your thesis. You don’t need to spell out every step, but you do need to suggest the organizational pattern you’ll be using.



Your introduction should not:

• Be vague. Beware of the two killer words in literary analysis: interesting and important. Of course the work, question, or example is interesting and important—that’s why you’re writing about it!

• Open with any grandiose assertions. Many student readers think that beginning their essays with a flamboyant statement such as, “Since the dawn of time, writers have been fascinated with the topic of free will,” makes them sound important and commanding. You know what? It actually sounds pretty amateurish.

• Wildly praise the work. Another typical mistake student writers make is extolling the work or author. Your teacher doesn’t need to be told that “Shakespeare is perhaps the greatest writer in the English language.” You can mention a work’s reputation in passing—by referring to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as “Mark Twain’s enduring classic,” for example—but don’t make a point of bringing it up unless that reputation is key to your argument.

• Go off-topic. Keep your introduction streamlined and to the point. Don’t feel the need to throw in all kinds of bells and whistles in order to impress your reader—just get to the point as quickly as you can, without skimping on any of the required steps.

6. Write the Body ParagraphsOnce you’ve written your introduction, you’ll take the arguments you developed in step 4 and turn them intoyour body paragraphs. The organization of this middle section of your essay will largely be determined by theargumentative strategy you use, but no matter how you arrange your thoughts, your body paragraphs need todo the following:

• Begin with a strong topic sentence. Topic sentences are like signs on a highway: they tell the reader where they are and where they’re going. A good topic sentence not only alerts readers to what issue will be discussed in the following paragraph but also gives them a sense of what argument will be made about that issue. “Rumor and gossip play an important role in The Crucible” isn’t a strong topic sentence because it doesn’t tell us very much. “The community’s constant gossiping creates an environment that allows false accusations to flourish” is a much stronger topic sentence—it not only tells us what the paragraph will discuss (gossip) but how the paragraph will discuss the topic (by showing how gossip creates a set of conditions that leads to the play’s climactic action).

• Fully and completely develop a single thought. Don’t skip around in your paragraph or try to stuff in too much material. Body paragraphs are like bricks: each individual one needs to be strong and sturdy or the entire structure will collapse. Make sure you have really proven your point before moving on to the next one.

• Use transitions effectively. Good literary essay writers know that each paragraph must be clearly and strongly linked to the material around it. Think of each paragraph as a response to the one that precedes it. Use transition words and phrases such as however, similarly, on the contrary, therefore, and furthermore to indicate what kind of response you’re making.

7. Write the ConclusionJust as you used the introduction to ground your readers in the topic before providing your thesis, you’ll usethe conclusion to quickly summarize the specifics learned thus far and then hint at the broader implications ofyour topic. A good conclusion will:

• Do more than simply restate the thesis. If your thesis argued that The Catcher in the Rye can be read as a Christian allegory, don’t simply end your essay by saying, “And that is why The Catcher in the Rye can



be read as a Christian allegory.” If you’ve constructed your arguments well, this kind of statement will just be redundant.

• Synthesize the arguments, not summarize them. Similarly, don’t repeat the details of your body paragraphs in your conclusion. The reader has already read your essay, and chances are it’s not so long that they’ve forgotten all your points by now.

• Revisit the “So what?” question. In your introduction, you made a case for why your topic and position are important. You should close your essay with the same sort of gesture. What do your readers know now that they didn’t know before? How will that knowledge help them better appreciate or understand the work overall?

• Move from the specific to the general. Your essay has most likely treated a very specific element of the work—a single character, a small set of images, or a particular passage. In your conclusion, try to show how this narrow discussion has wider implications for the work overall. If your essay on To Kill a Mockingbird focused on the character of Boo Radley, for example, you might want to include a bit in your conclusion about how he fits into the novel’s larger message about childhood, innocence, or family life.

• Stay relevant. Your conclusion should suggest new directions of thought, but it shouldn’t be treated as an opportunity to pad your essay with all the extra, interesting ideas you came up with during your brainstorming sessions but couldn’t fit into the essay proper. Don’t attempt to stuff in unrelated queries or too many abstract thoughts.

• Avoid making overblown closing statements. A conclusion should open up your highly specific, focused discussion, but it should do so without drawing a sweeping lesson about life or human nature. Making such observations may be part of the point of reading, but it’s almost always a mistake in essays, where these observations tend to sound overly dramatic or simply silly.

A+ Essay ChecklistCongratulations! If you’ve followed all the steps we’ve outlined above, you should have a solid literary essayto show for all your efforts. What if you’ve got your sights set on an A+? To write the kind of superlative essaythat will be rewarded with a perfect grade, keep the following rubric in mind. These are the qualities thatteachers expect to see in a truly A+ essay. How does yours stack up?

• Demonstrates a thorough understanding of the book

• Presents an original, compelling argument

• Thoughtfully analyzes the text’s formal elements

• Uses appropriate and insightful examples

• Structures ideas in a logical and progressive order

• Demonstrates a mastery of sentence construction, transitions, grammar, spelling, and word choice



Suggested Essay Topics 1. Is there a “heroic code” that guides the decisions of the characters in THE ILIAD? Discuss the values of the

Homeric hero, paying particular attention to contrasting characters such as Achilles, Odysseus, Paris, and Hector. Does one character emerge as more heroic than the rest? Does one character emerge as less heroic?

2. Discuss Homer’s portrayal of the gods in THE ILIAD. What is their relationship with mortals? With fate? Why might Homer have chosen the gods as a frequent source of comic relief? What larger points does Homer seem to be making by depicting the gods as he does?

3. With particular attention to Priam and Hector, as well as to Achilles and Peleus, discuss how THE ILIAD portrays relationships between fathers and sons. In what way does ancestral loyalty affect the characters’ behavior? You may want to consider the encounter between Diomedes and Glaucus as well. How do relationships between fathers and sons differ from those between mothers and sons?

4. Does Achilles ultimately emerge as a sympathetic character? Why or why not? Use examples from the text to explain your answer.

A+ Student EssayTo what extent is war depicted as a glorious event in THE ILIAD? How do the characters’ various attitudes toward war reveal different aspects of war?

The Iliad celebrates war and the men who wage it: man-killing Hector, lord of men Agamemnon, and swift-footed Achilles, whose rage is cited in the poem’s famous opening line. However, the same invocation alsomentions the “countless losses” suffered as a result of the Trojan War (1.2). While much of The Iliad celebratesthe splendor of military victory, the poem also honestly depicts the costs of war, which significantly under-mines the idea that war is a wholly glorious endeavor.

The battle scenes contain many passages focusing on the brutal destruction of the human body. In the veryfirst battle sequence, we see the Achaean Antilochus kill a man, sending his bronze spear “smashing throughhis skull” (4.533). Homer doesn’t merely say that the spear kills the victim: He emphasizes that it literallyshatters the man’s skull, forcing the reader to confront the terrifying and grotesque ways that human bodiesare mutilated during war. The descriptions become even more gruesome as the fighting continues. We seeDamasus’s brains “splattered all inside his casque,” a spear piercing a man’s bowels, and another spear slicinga man’s liver (12.214). The specific body parts being maimed here symbolize other, equally damaging effectsof battle. The brain, for example, represents human beings’ capacity for rational thought, a capacity that isdestroyed by war. The violation of the bowels and the liver, organs that process the body’s waste, release filthinto the dying men’s bodies, further degrading them.

Homer also draws attention to the way war not only destroys but dehumanizes the Achaean and Trojansoldiers, bringing out their base, animalistic natures. He describes the men as groups of animals rushing intobattle. The soldiers are flocks of geese, wild boars, hounds—numerous, fierce, and determined hunters ofother men. Though the victorious warrior will emerge as a hero and a great man, he reaches his goal bybehaving in a brutal, inhuman way.

While the men behave like animals on the battlefield, they nevertheless experience human emotions whenthey are forced to deal with the difficult choices and losses inflicted by war. Soon after Hector returns to hiswife, Andromache, and his young son, Astyanax, he is obligated to return to battle, despite his love for hisfamily and his wife’s prophecy that the war will soon cost him his life. Though heavy-hearted, Hector insistson going back, claiming that he must win “great glory” for his father and himself, for he has learned theancient world’s masculine code “all too well” (6.527–529). In this episode, Homer presents us with a culturewhere the pursuit of military glory directly conflicts with devotion to one’s family, and in pursuing theformer, Hector must abandon the latter. But family members are not the only losses the soldiers must endure:They also experience great anguish when they lose their fellow warriors on the battlefield. When Achilleslearns of Patroclus’s death, for example, he is stricken with grief, yelling at the gods as he claws at the groundand tears at his hair. Achilles’ intense feelings of grief soon give way to rage, and Homer describes how the



hero loses “the will to live, to take [his] stand in the world of men” until he can vanquish Hector (18.105–106).Achilles goes on to slaughter Hector in one of the poem’s most violent passages. Patroclus’s death upsetsAchilles’ concept of the world order. Now he fights not for glory or out of envy, but because he simply cannotlive until he kills his foe. Grief and rage have become inextricably linked for Achilles, and war is no longer anoble or glorious endeavor but simply the symptom of incomprehensible loss.

The tension between the glory of war and its simultaneous costs fuels The Iliad, as characters must con-stantly grapple with the difficult, arduous choices their culture demands of them. In this way, it resemblesanother central theme in The Iliad: the uneasy relationship between human action and divine intervention,which is likewise set out in the poem’s opening stanza. While Achilles’ rage is initially presented as the chiefcause of the fighting, Homer also claims that the war is a result of “the will of Zeus . . . moving toward its end”(1.7). The question of how far human beings’ free will extends remains an open one throughout the poem,and Homer never comes down clearly on one side or the other. The Iliad ultimately depicts a deeply dualisticworld, where glory must be balanced with agony and individual action with a lack of ultimate control. TheIliad has remained a touchstone for Western culture because it honestly explores essential conflicts of thehuman condition without condescending to its readers by providing easy answers. Its raw power and beautyhas ensured that we’ve kept mulling over its challenges nearly three millennia later.

Glossary of Literary TermsAntagonist

The entity that acts to frustrate the goals of the PROTAGONIST. The antagonist is usually another CHARACTER but may also be a non-human force.

antihero / antiheroineA PROTAGONIST who is not admirable or who challenges notions of what should be considered admirable.

CharacterA person, animal, or any other thing with a personality that appears in a NARRATIVE.

ClimaxThe moment of greatest intensity in a text or the major turning point in the PLOT.

ConflictThe central struggle that moves the PLOT forward. The conflict can be the PROTAGONIST’s struggle against fate, nature, society, or another person.

First-person point of viewA literary style in which the NARRATOR tells the story from his or her own POINT OF VIEW and refers to himself or herself as “I.” The narrator may be an active participant in the story or just an observer.

Hero / heroineThe principal CHARACTER in a literary work or NARRATIVE.

ImageryLanguage that brings to mind sense-impressions, representing things that can be seen, smelled, heard, tasted, or touched.

MotifA recurring idea, structure, contrast, or device that develops or informs the major THEMES of a work of literature.

NarrativeA story.



NarratorThe person (sometimes a CHARACTER) who tells a story; the VOICE assumed by the writer. The narrator and the author of the work of literature are not the same person.

PlotThe arrangement of the events in a story, including the sequence in which they are told, the relative emphasis they are given, and the causal connections between events.

Point of viewThe PERSPECTIVE that a NARRATIVE takes toward the events it describes.

ProtagonistThe main CHARACTER around whom the story revolves.

SettingThe location of a NARRATIVE in time and space. Setting creates mood or atmosphere.

subplotA secondary PLOT that is of less importance to the overall story but may serve as a point of contrast or comparison to the main plot.

SymbolAn object, CHARACTER, figure, or color that is used to represent an abstract idea or concept. Unlike an EMBLEM, a symbol may have different meanings in different contexts.

SyntaxThe way the words in a piece of writing are put together to form lines, phrases, or clauses; the basic structure of a piece of writing.

ThemeA fundamental and universal idea explored in a literary work.

ToneThe author’s attitude toward the subject or CHARACTERS of a story or poem or toward the reader.

VoiceAn author’s individual way of using language to reflect his or her own personality and attitudes. An author communicates voice through TONE, DICTION, and SYNTAX.



A Note on PlagiarismPlagiarism—presenting someone else’s work as your own—rears its ugly head in many forms. Many studentsknow that copying text without citing it is unacceptable. But some don’t realize that even if you’re not quot-ing directly, but instead are paraphrasing or summarizing, it is plagiarism unless you cite the source.

Here are the most common forms of plagiarism:

• Using an author’s phrases, sentences, or paragraphs without citing the source

• Paraphrasing an author’s ideas without citing the source

• Passing off another student’s work as your own

How do you steer clear of plagiarism? You should always acknowledge all words and ideas that aren’t yourown by using quotation marks around verbatim text or citations like footnotes and endnotes to note anotherwriter’s ideas. For more information on how to give credit when credit is due, ask your teacher for guidanceor visit www.sparknotes.com.


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Review & Resources

Quiz1. Who sends the plague to the Achaean camp near the beginning of The Iliad?

A. ApolloB. ZeusC. HeraD. Moses

2. When does Achilles die?A. In Book 4B. In Book 12C. In Book 24D. He doesn’t die in The Iliad.

3. Which of the following characters do not engage in one-on-one combat with each other in the poem?A. Paris and MenelausB. Achilles and AgenorC. Hector and AjaxD. Priam and Agamemnon

4. When is The Iliad thought to have been composed?A. The twelfth century b.c.B. The fifteenth century b.c.C. The eighth century b.c.D. The third century b.c.

5. Who helps rescue Machaon after Paris wounds him?A. NestorB. HectorC. PatroclusD. Odysseus

6. Who kills Dolon?A. OdysseusB. AeneasC. AjaxD. Diomedes

7. With what weapon does Ajax knock Hector unconscious?A. A boulderB. A spearC. A wooden clubD. His astonishing good looks


52


8. At what point in the story do the Achaeans hold their athletic competition?A. After the warB. Before the warC. After the funeral of PatroclusD. When Achilles rejoins the battle

9. Which of the following characters is Helen’s brother-in-law?A. HectorB. AchillesC. AgenorD. Agamemnon

10. How long has the Trojan War been going by the time The Iliad begins?A. Nine yearsB. Eight monthsC. One weekD. The poem begins with the beginning of the war.

11. How many Trojan warriors does Achilles sacrifice on Patroclus’s pyre?A. 100B. 12C. 8D. 25

12. Who suggests that Helen be returned to Menelaus?A. HectorB. HecubaC. ParisD. Antenor

13. Who reminds Achilles that the Achaean soldiers cannot fight on empty stomachs?A. AjaxB. OdysseusC. AgamemnonD. Menelaus

14. Which god helps to bring about the death of Patroclus?A. ZeusB. HephaestusC. PoseidonD. Apollo

15. Why is Astyanax frightened when he sees his father, Hector?A. He sees Hector’s blood-stained sword.B. He foresees Hector’s death.C. The plume on Hector’s helmet startles him.D. He worries that Hector will bring him back to the battlefield with him.

16. Which of the following do not appear on Achilles’ new shield?A. Dancing childrenB. ConstellationsC. Verdant pasturesD. Valiant warriors

review & resources53


17. With which immortal does Achilles engage in one-on-one combat?A. The river god XanthusB. ZeusC. HephaestusD. Apollo

18. Why does Zeus initially agree to help the Trojans in the war?A. Because he thinks Paris deserves Helen more than Menelaus does.B. He does so as a favor to Thetis, who asks him on behalf of Achilles.C. He does so to spite his nagging wife, Hera.D. Because he despises Odysseus for lusting after Hera.

19. What provokes Achilles’ rage against Agamemnon?A. Agamemnon’s demand that Achilles hand over BriseisB. Agamemnon’s insults of Achilles’ lineageC. Agamemnon’s defeat of Achilles in a footraceD. Agamemnon’s repeated sending of Achilles to the front lines, where the danger of being killed

is greatest

20. Who raised Patroclus?A. ThetisB. PeleusC. Shepherds on Mount IdaD. Nestor

21. Who sets fire to a Greek ship?A. AeneasB. Hephaestus, god of fire and ironC. HectorD. Agamemnon, in a suicidal urge

22. What magical charm does Hera use in seducing Zeus and making him fall asleep?A. Some powder from a ground-up rhinoceros hornB. An enchanted breastband from AphroditeC. A magical potion mixed by the SirensD. A talisman that Hermes gave her

23. What do Helen and Paris do during one particularly stormy battle?A. They pray to the gods.B. They set up an orphanage for the future orphans of Troy.C. They mix medicines.D. They sleep together.

24. Where is Achilles’ old armor most vulnerable to attack?A. At the heelB. At the elbowC. At the neckD. In the eye visor



25. What grave tactical error does Hector make out of overconfidence?A. He orders his men to put down their swords and fight with daggers.B. He orders his men to camp outside Troy’s walls.C. He gives permission for half of his men to go on vacation.D. He decides that his troops do not need to eat before fighting.

Suggestions for Further ReadingBrann, Eva. Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading The Odyssey and The Iliad. Philadelphia:

Paul Dry Books, 2002.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Trans. John Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, reprint edition 2006.

Camps, W. A. An Introduction to Homer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Edwards, Mark W. Homer: Poet of The Iliad. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, reprint edition 1990.

Griffin, Jasper. Homer on Life and Death. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Kirk, G. S. The Songs of Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, new edition 2004.

Nagy, Gregory. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, revised edition 1998.

Silk, M. S. Homer: The Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 2004.

Vivante, Paolo. Homer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

answer key:1: a; 2: d; 3: d; 4: c; 5: a; 6: d; 7: a; 8: c; 9: d; 10: a; 11: b; 12: d; 13: b; 14: d; 15: c; 16: d; 17: a; 18: b; 19: a; 20: b; 21: c; 22: b; 23: d; 24: c; 25: b


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